


and I tried to hold these secrets inside me

by queenlara



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It, Wendigo!Josh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenlara/pseuds/queenlara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike makes it out of the mines, but Sam doesn't. </p><p>When Sam regains consciousness, she’s deep within the mines, cold, tired, and with a broken leg—she realizes she’s not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hook, line, and sinker for every little stinker

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place alternating between the present and flashbacks. It shouldn't be too hard to distinguish the difference, but asterisks will separate them. After watching Until Dawn, I was itching to write a fix-it fic because Josh deserves so much better than he got. The title comes from "Control" by Halsey, because I'm in a Halsey phase right now.

“Shit,” Sam pants as she sprints through the damp mines. “Shit, fuck!” The screeches of the Wendigo echo behind her. She dashes, the light from her headset bobbing in front of her. Her foot catches on an unforeseen obstacle, and she sprawls forward, headset sliding off her sweaty forehead. Sam’s up before she can retrieve it and keeps sprinting forward. The only thing keeping her going is the stamina built up from hours of rock climbing.

She hopes Mike makes it back to the house with Josh. Sam knows Josh is on medication, he mentioned it briefly when they talked a week before the mountain, but she hadn’t known how bad he had gotten—how could she? Even though they talked almost every day leading up to the trip, Sam knows he struggled after the loss of Hannah and Beth, they all did. Sam hadn’t expected Josh to go off the reservation like that, but she shuts that train of thought down immediately—she has to focus on surviving.

Sam tries to focus on the path in front of her, but all she can think about are her numb feet and the sharp pain in her shins, the cut on her knee that’s steadily oozing blood. Her vision wavers in front of her, and she blinks it away furiously, her heart a staccato beat in her ears. There’s a steep drop off in front of her, and with the Wendigo’s screams echoing farther and farther away, she slows down to unsteadily sit on the edge. Before Sam can drop herself down, a screech echoes through the mines, half-animal half-man. The sound startles her, and she begins to slide before she can stop herself, hands scrambling for a grip.

Her left leg snaps beneath her as Sam lands directly on it, and she can’t help the agonized cry that escapes from her mouth as she tumbles forward. Any hope of survival slips away from her, and hot, painful tears begin to slide down her cheeks. “Fuck,” she whispers again, gripping her leg as if she can heal the bone through sheer willpower alone. The screams behind her reach an echoing crescendo then cut off sharply, leaving her in almost complete silence besides her labored breathing.

Leaning her head back against the icy rocks behind her, she tries to even out her breathing and strain her ears for any telling noise, morbidly curious about when death will come for her. It isn’t long before she hears the sound of rasped breathing, and an odd dragging thud from the overhang she fell from. Fear spikes her heart rate again, and she opens her eyes, scanning the ledge above her.

All she can see is a dark blur as the Wendigo leaps from the overhang, landing about fifteen feet in front of her, and it lurches around. Heart caught in her throat, Sam’s eyes drag over dingy blue overalls and a collared shirt. _Shit._

“Josh?” Sam whispers, and Josh—the Wendigo—tilts its head, eyes glazed over and empty. Half of his mouth is contorted, filled with fangs, but he’s not the corpse-like husk that characterizes the other Wendigos. He shows no recognition as he lumbers towards her, and she scrambles back, pressing as far into the rocks at her back as she can, as if they will simply absorb her.

Sobs hitch her breath as she lets out a hysterical little laugh. Who knew it would’ve turned out this way, so close to dawn only to be eaten by the one man she thought she might’ve had a connection with?

He’s five feet in front of her now, and she’d love to be able to meet death head on with a quick quip, but all she can do is cry and shake. As tears blur her vision, Sam can almost swear that she saw the non-deformed side of Josh’s mouth quirk down into a frown.

Sam feels his hot breath on her face as she screws her eyes shut—no, she can’t look death in the face. She’s not brave, not like Mike. She’s not clever or resourceful like Ashley, or selfless, like Matt, and she’s going to die in the bottom of the mines with a broken leg, eaten by the brother of her dead best friend. _What a fucked up way to go,_ she thinks.

The seconds drag on, and she tries not to smell the rot on his breath as it hitches unsteadily, and she waits, and she waits—and she feels something slimy on her cheek. _Wait, did he lick me?_ Sam thinks, and she opens one eye, and he licks her again— _oh,_ she realizes dizzily, _the blood on my cheek._ His fangs scrape her skin; she reminds herself that she’s going to die.

Josh, for his part, looks intent on removing the drying blood from her face, and this close it’s hard to think of him as the Wendigo and not the goofy guy she’s come to know. From this angle, she can’t see his fangs.

“Josh?” she whispers, voice cracking slightly. He gives no indication that he hears her, that he knows her. He shifts, leaning on her broken leg, and she lets out a whimper, the pain and the coldness that had faded away with the adrenaline of imminent death returning in full-throttle.

She waits for Josh to kill her, or maybe he’s waiting— _I mean, he is a new Wendigo,_ she thinks. Whatever he is, a jolt of pain shoots through her leg as he picks her up, cradled in his arms like she weighs nothing and _he isn’t planning on feasting on her later._

“Fuck, put me down! I don’t want to die!” Sam pushes at his overalls helplessly—she’s not weak, for fuck’s sake, she’s a goddamn rock climber—but he’s passive as she struggles in his arms.

Sam stares at the fanged side of his mouth. Maybe he’s waiting till he’s further into the transformation to...eat her? When she resumes her struggling, Josh stops walking to look down at her, and she freezes.

 _They can’t see stillness. But is he a full Wendigo yet? Fuck, fuck,_ Sam thinks, but Josh resumes walking to locations unknown. Each jolting step he takes shoots pain up her broken leg, and she bites her lip to keep from crying out. She tastes copper on her lips, and she sees Josh’s nostrils flare, as if he can smell that minute amount of blood. _He probably can,_ Sam thinks.

Josh stumps into a natural cave near the edge of the mine, Sam can smell the snow and fresh air. Moving towards the back of the cave, Josh sets Sam down and almost gently arranges her on the ground. Her breaths are coming in short bursts again, and her skin feels cold and clammy. _Is this what shock feels like?_ Sam thinks dizzily, and she lets out a small hysterical giggle.

Josh looks down at her, and even in her shaking state, Sam tries to search his face for something familiar, for the guy she joked with in the basement only twenty-four hours ago. Pain makes her vision hazy, and her nails bite into her palm as she clenches her fists, trying to keep herself awake. She fails though, and in her pain-fueled haze she almost imagines he tucks her hair behind her ear.

***************************

She wakes up screaming, her hyperrealistic dream ending abruptly with her leg being broken in agonizing detail—and her eyes open to Josh tying the final knot on a makeshift splint, brows furrowed in concentration, glassy eyes trained on his task. He had placed two pieces of wood on either side of her broken leg, tying strips of fabric to keep them in place on her legs. For a supposedly mindless monster, he was doing an excellent job, until Sam looked behind Josh—a pile of bones with meat hanging on them dropped in the corner. _A mid-morning snack,_ she thinks—but does she even know what time it is?

That thought drops like a stone in the pit of her stomach. Where were Mike and the others? Was she going to be left in this stinking pit under the mountain, like Hannah, thought dead and left to suffer a fate worse than death? Hysteria and raw fear grab her by the throat, choking her.

Josh had finished his task, and now sat in the furthest corner of the cave from her, gnawing on his bones. Sam takes a moment to think through the situation, pushing her fear down and wrapping it up tight. She had her time earlier to be hysterical and in pain, now she is alive and has to escape. She won’t die like Beth, won’t become a Wendigo like Hannah or Josh—someone has to realize she’s still alive. She came back for Mike, he knows what’s in the mines—surely he’ll at least come back for her? But Sam’s never waited on a man before, and it won’t change now. Josh hasn’t attempted to eat her yet, so she supposes she has a little time. She’ll watch for the Wendigo in him, the transformation from man to monster.

Sam is so caught up in her study of him that she doesn’t notice that he has stopped chewing on his bones and is meeting her eyes steadily. She freezes, getting lost in the brief, flickering humanity in his eyes. His deer-in-the-headlights look is reminiscent of when she first met him, and she can’t help but contrast that moment to now.

***************************

She’s excited—a freshman in high school, going to her first, real, unsupervised sleepover. Sam had met Hannah in English class, unlikely partners for the first-year project on a famous poet. Sam hadn’t known what to think of the shy girl who hid behind her glasses like a shield, but Hannah had a quiet wit and an earnest attitude that drew them together immediately. Sam also liked Hannah’s twin sister, Beth; she was the more outgoing of the two. Together, the three of them would take on the world, one movie marathon at a time.

Her arrival at the Washington’s house puts Sam in awe—she knows Hannah and Beth are “well-off,” but had no idea they are this wealthy. Their house, which was closer to a mansion, shocks her into silence, and she takes a moment to recall her own tiny ranch house that she calls home.

“Shit,” Sam says, the curse word clumsy in her mouth. She doesn’t typically curse, but she feels it is appropriate for the situation. Of course, she curses more now than she did before highschool—Beth has the mouth of a sailor, and claims she gets it from her brother.

“Come on!” Hannah says, grabbing her backpack and motioning Sam forwards impatiently. “Our mom said we could order pizza.” Sam’s stomach growls in response, and Beth laughs.

“Man, you athletes are always hungry,” she teases, turning towards the house and jogging up the wide steps. Beth digs her keys out of her backpack and begins unlocking the elaborately carved oak door.

“Hey, me and Mike eat a reasonable amount of food for the amount we exercise!” Sam calls to her, hands on her hips. “We have to eat enough calories to balance out the amount we burn—”

“You freaks of nature could eat a horse if it stood still long enough! Do they ban you at all-you-can-eat buffets?” Beth interrupts her, swinging the front door open and gesturing her inside.

“Shut up, Beth,” she complains good-naturedly, trying not to gape as she enters the foyer of the house. For a moment, she contemplates the disparity in their economic statuses, but shakes off her own feelings of inadequacy.

“You can get changed upstairs, if you want, we plan on staying in pajama pants all weekend!” Hannah says, pointing towards the grand staircase. “It’s the first door on the left,” she adds. Sam’s too busy gawking at the elegant decor and the stillness of the house, like the house was unlived in.

Snapping out of her reverie, she nods and jogs up the stairs, muscles aching from the intense track practices all week. She was training to compete in the Steeplechase race next week, and the coach was drilling them with hurdles. Wincing, she makes it to the top of the stairs, lost in thought. First door on the...right?

Shrugging, she opens the door, taking in the bland decorations. The room has no personality, and she cringes thinking about her over-decorated room in her house, cramped and filled with posters, old trophies, and fairy lights draped over every surface.

Sam shimmies out of her jeans and blouse, grabbing stretchy leggings and an over-sized t-shirt with the words “You’ve cat to be kitten me right meow” emblazoned on it, a gift from her cousin. Sam steps into her leggings, but freezes when she hears the door open. An unfamiliar guy in a towel, hair dripping wet, stands in the doorway. His face is rapidly reddening, and Sam yanks up her leggings and holds her t-shirt to her chest.

“What the hell?” Sam accuses, blush coloring her own cheeks.

“You’re in my room!” he yelps. “Don’t look at me!”

 _First door on the..._ “Fuck,” she mutters out loud. “Um, this one is on me. I definitely...messed up,” she stammers.

They both stare, unmoving, until Sam breaks the silence once more. “Could I...finish getting changed?”

“Fuck, yeah,” he says, blush deepening, as he slams the door. Hurriedly, she pulls her shirt on and almost hits him with the door as she slams it open, making a beeline down the stairs. “Sorry!” she calls up, avoiding eye contact.

When she makes it downstairs, she runs into Hannah at the edge of the foyer.

“I think I just met your brother,” Sam says. “We may have, accidentally, _seen each other half naked.”_

“Wait, what?”

***************************

Sam eyes the same man warily as he inches towards her. There are traces of the boy she met in the shape of his jawline and the curve of his back, but his grotesque mouth and glassy eyes bely that, and she feels her heart twinge. _Where did everything go so wrong,_ she wonders. _Was it last year, when we lost Hannah and Beth, or earlier? When did everything break?_

Josh leans over her leg now, hand brushing over the crusted cut on her knee, and bends down to lick the edges of it.

“What? Ew, stop,” Sam mutters, trying to pull her leg away. His hands tighten on her thigh, and she attempts to push him away. “Shit, no, stop trying to eat me!”

A rumbling noise emanates from him, and she squints. _Is he...growling? At me?_

She stops moving, and the rumbling noise stops. Sam waits a moment, then begins to tug her leg away again. The rumbling noise starts anew, the sound grating at her ears. Sighing, she stops moving, and allows Josh to continue his weird ministrations. Her only guess is that, caught between man and monster, he is latching onto a remnant of his human life as he completes the transformation. She’s safe, for now, but who knows how long he lasts before he has to eat human flesh again?

Sam shifts slightly, running her fingers through her tangled hair, and Josh pauses, sparing her a glance before resuming his task. She feels tired and cold down to her bones, every ache, scrap, and broken bone screams for her attention, and the chill from the rock seeps into every pore. She slumps, exhausted by her trials this past day, this past year. With no decent night’s sleep since Hannah and Beth vanished on the mountain, Sam’s just tired. Tired of fighting, surviving, and pretending she’s okay. Against her will, tears begin to leak out of her eyes. They roll silently down her cheeks, and she leans her head back against the wall. When did her life become such a shitshow? Sam squeezes her eyes together and purses her lips, trying to hold herself together by the seams and failing.

Josh—but she has to stop calling him that, he’s not her friend anymore, he’s beyond saving, beyond hope. _The Wendigo_ senses her pain, and looks up. His gruesome fangs crowd his mouth, and his eyes are vacant with death. Slowly, his face inches towards her, and he rests his cheek on hers. The silence in the cave is palpable, not broken even for a breath. She trembles under his touch, tears leaking out faster now, her small gasping cry breaking the silence. Here she is, trapped in a fucking mine on fucking Blackwood Mountain, and her friend-turned-Wendigo has put his face next to hers for some unfathomable reason.

“Un-fucking-believable,” she whispers when her crying and shaking begins to subside. _“Un-fucking-believable.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my roommate [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas/pseuds/angelheadedcas) for betaing this for me, and also for inspiring me to write this. Welcome to sam x josh hell. Please R&R, and let me know what you think!  
> Find me at [bisexualimperator](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


	2. Godspeed, Pilgrim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so overwhelmed with the response I'm getting with the story! All of your comments mean so much for me, and they definitely pushed me to keep plowing through. I'll be posting chapters as I finish the next one, i.e., I finished chapter three last night so I'm posting chapter two. I always like to have one in the reserves.
> 
> Also, enjoy this complimentary playlist that I made to help inspire me while I write! [listen here](http://8tracks.com/queenlara/and-i-tried-to-hold-these-secrets-inside-me)

“Shit, shit, goddammit, fucking fuck!” Sam mutters, clinging to the side of the cave. While Josh— _The Wendigo_ —is out hunting, or killing, fighting, whatever Wendigos do, Sam is stuck here in this cold, smelly cave, trying not to put weight on her healing leg. Sam stands, wobbling with her makeshift splint and yelping in pain as she tries to limp forward. She knows escape isn’t in the cards today, not when she’s hobbling slower than her _babushka_. But practice makes perfect, and she didn’t learn how to rock climb or jump hurdles in one day.

She painstakingly steps away from the wall, arms out to balance herself. She leans forward to rest weight on her left leg, biting her lip as she gauges the pain. _On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?_ Sam thinks wryly, but the scuffle of something being dragged on rock leads her to clinging to the wall again.

Josh enters the cave, dragging something heavy behind him. In the dim light of the mine, it’s hard to see what it is, but Josh drops the weight at the edge of the cave, eyes following Sam as she sways against the wall.

It’s a wolf. Josh killed a wolf and dragged it back to the cave, but for what purpose? He sits down next to it, and the sound of something ripping from wet flesh has her gagging. Does he plan to eat it? Do Wendigos even _eat_ anything besides human flesh? Sam hadn’t thought about it before now, but as the smell of blood and wet fur wafts towards her, she curses herself for not thinking of it. If Josh had an alternate food source, would he even eat her?

She tries to block out the sounds coming from the mouth of the cave and concentrates on taking small steps with her injured leg. Sam shuffles along the wall, the dull ache of her leg gradually making itself more pronounced as she practices. Eventually, she slides down the rocky wall, her leg throbbing with pain. The pain is the only distraction from the cold, and now that she’s stopped moving she feels the chill in her stiff joints and numb fingers.

Trying to warm up her hands by stuffing them in her armpits, Sam suddenly notices the absence of the wet tearing noise that had been coming from the edge of the cave. She cautiously glances over, only to see Josh covered in blood and holding a bloody pelt. The carcass of the wolf lies at the entrance of the cave, stripped of fur and flesh. Sam tries not to gag, but Josh inches towards her and she instinctively recoils. The smell of blood is pungent, but he’s kneeling in front of her, and with an odd gentleness, drapes the furry side of the wolf pelt over her legs. Is... he trying to keep her _warm?_

Nodding, Josh moves back towards the wolf carcass and begins eating it. Sam tries not to look at the fleshy side of the pelt facing up towards her, and instead closes her eyes and begins to think.

Josh is a Wendigo. Josh also saved her, splinted her leg, and ripped apart a wolf for its fur. He even cleaned her wounds with his weird licking thing. Josh may be a Wendigo, but he still clings onto some of his humanity. _What does that mean?_ Sam thinks. _Will it last?_

In his human life, Josh had rarely shown tenderness in front of others, preferring to crack a sex joke instead. But despite the mask of the cool player he attempted to wear, Sam had known him long enough to see past it. Secretly, Sam knew—Josh had cared, and he had cared _a lot_. Too much for the oldest son of a rich, dysfunctional family. Unbidden, memories resurface of the first party she had attended in high school, and how that day he first showed his uncanny ability to show up exactly when she needed him.

***************************

The pounding of the music is already making her head hurt, and she adjusts her jersey skirt for the fiftieth time tonight. Hannah had said it made her toned legs look great, and Beth had agreed, but it’s one thing to dance around the Washington’s house wearing this and another while in the crush of people at a crowded house party. She lost count of the number of guys that had swiped at her ass, and she’s too short to locate her friends in the crowd. Sam ends up pushing her way towards the kitchen, hoping for a glass of water to get the taste of stale beer out of her mouth.

Earlier, Hannah had immediately broken away from the trio to follow Mike towards the patio, and Sam lost Beth when Ashley had shown up, begging for advice on what to do about Chris. Sam had assured Beth that she would be fine without supervision, and staked her claim in a corner of the living room, leaning her shoulders against a blessedly cool windowpane.

But she needs some water, so here she is, plowing through people and determinedly staring at their collarbones to avoid eye contact. At five foot nothing, it isn’t hard, so Sam makes it to the kitchen pretty quickly, grabbing an empty solo cup and filling it up with sink water.

“Hey, come here often?”

Mentally groaning, Sam turns around and sees a vaguely familiar guy leaning on the counter next to her. She thinks it’s one of Mike’s football friends, an upperclassman, maybe. If Mike knows him, he can’t be all bad, so she plays along.

“Can’t say I do, typically,” Sam says with a grin. He seems nice, with a letterman jacket and a solid build.

“I was gonna say the same. I know I’d remember a girl like you in a place like this. What do you say we go upstairs and get to know each other? I know Matt’s got a spare room up there.”

 _And there goes any chance he has_ , she thinks. “Um, I’m good right now. Just chilling here with my water,” Sam says awkwardly, fiddling with the rim of her cup.

“Water? Nah, have some of the good stuff! It’ll help you relax,” he assures her, and starts moving towards the bowl of jungle juice on the kitchen table. When his back is turned, Sam makes her daring escape, abandoning her water cup to push her way toward the front door. She’ll text Hannah and Beth that she skipped out early, make her apologies, but she’s finished for the night.

“Finally,” she mutters once she hits the cool air outside. She shuts the door quietly behind her, and makes her way down to sit on the curb. Matt, like most of the people from school, lives in a nice neighborhood. Sam’s house is about five miles away, and while she’s run longer distances, it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame wearing a skirt at night. Sam doesn’t plan on waiting for the overeager jock she abandoned to come looking for her, so she stands up with a sigh and dusts off her skirt.

“Almost didn’t recognize you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your hair down before,” someone comments behind her. Sam tenses, but relaxes when she recognizes Josh’s voice.

“I know. It’s not very practical of me, but Han insisted,” Sam says, turning around to face him.

He’s abandoned his usual plaid shirt for a plain blue button-down and jeans. There’s a pull-over jacket tossed over his shoulders, probably taken off in the heat of the house.

Josh grins at Sam and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “It looks nice,” he offers, but before Sam can thank him for the compliment, he adds, “like sex hair, all tousled.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Sam rolls her eyes. “Anyway, if you see Hannah and Beth, tell them I had to get going, alright? I’ve got track practice in the morning.”

Josh glances around. “Do you plan on... walking?”

“Yes? Unlike you, I don’t have a car. Or even a license,” Sam says, shrugging.

“I mean, your house is... actually, I don’t even know where your house is, dude. Where do you live?” Josh asks, brows furrowed.

“Over in that direction.” Sam waves vaguely. “I’ll be fine. I can outrun any threats, you know,” she jokes.

Josh shrugs. “Okay, I’ll walk with you.”

“Wait, what?” Sam frowns, crossing her arms. “That’s unnecessary. Just go back to the party and have fun,” she urges, “I’ll be fine!”

“Sam, I don’t know if you know this, but Mama Washington raised a gentleman.” Josh crosses his arms right back. “She’ll kill me if she finds out I let you walk home alone.”

“Do you actually call your mom ‘Mama Washington’? I was under the impression she was more of a ‘mother’ type.”

“Well, Chris started that actually. And then he started making weird ‘Stacy’s Mom’ jokes, and... that’s besides the point. We’re burning moonlight here, let’s get this show on the road.” Josh gestures towards the road. “Lead the way, Kamkin.”

Sam throws her hands up in a familiar gesture of exasperation. “Fine, Washington, if you insist.” She maps out the route in her mind as she begins walking down the street. The air outside is cold compared to the cramped, sweaty heat of the house, and she starts to shiver.

“Cold, Sam? I know a few things that could warm us up,” Josh says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“You sure make a lot of sex jokes for a virgin, Josh.” Sam watches his face redden under the warm glow of the streetlights, and tries not to burst out laughing. For a guy who talked so much about sex, he was pretty easy to goad.

“What? I am _not_ a virgin,” he sputters. “I mean, definitely not. I’ve banged _tons_ of girls before. Like, at least ten.”

“Yeah sure, Casanova,” Sam says, putting her hands up in a defensive manner. “No judgment here, man! Wait for the right girl, blahdy blahdy blah.”

“Pot calling the kettle black, Kamkin. I don’t see you with a line of notches in your bedpost.”

“How would you know? You don’t even know where I live. Maybe I go through a man a night, and then kick them out every morning.”

“You’re not that heartless, Sammy,” Josh says seriously. Before she can respond, he tosses something at her—the sweater he was wearing earlier. “Don’t freeze to death, I think your track coach would have my head if I cost him his star runner. And I don’t think I could outrun that bastard.”

“Aw, a true romantic. You’ll sweep a girl off her feet someday, Washington.” Sam teases, pulling the large sweater over her. It comes down to almost the edge of her skirt, and she pulls it over her palms, hands curling around the edges. It’s warmer than her flimsy tank top, and she appreciates the gesture.

They chat for a bit about music and classes and how Chris would never make a move on Ashley unless he was dying, and about three-quarters of the way home Josh pauses in his conversation. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

They had finally made it out of the McMansions that characterized the part of town that Matt and some of the others lived in, nearing the area filled with ranches and run-down Food Lions.

“Yeah, it’s not too far now.” Sam nods, pointing down the road towards a dingy, unreadable sign that presumably marked the entrance of her neighborhood. “I live down that street.”

“I had no idea you lived over here. And so fucking far away, Jesus! I can’t believe you were gonna walk home alone in this part of town,” Josh complains.

“It’s not in a bad part of town or anything, just old. I mean, not all of us are the children of major movie moguls.” Sam frowns and wraps her arms around herself, contemplative. “I mean, not that I’d want to be a Washington, considering how hardcore your parents are, but still.”

“Bonus points for the alliteration, Kamkin, but I just didn’t know you lived over here. How do you get to school?”

“I bike. It’s good exercise. I believe in exercise, _unlike some people I know_.” Sam loves her beat-up bike, but she did wish she could drive. It would make things so much easier, especially in a situation like this one. She makes a mental note to use this as a point in her endless argument with her parents to allow her to get her license.

“Jesus, you are the most fit person I know. You make me feel guilty about all that pizza I eat,” Josh complains. Sam resists the urge to poke his stomach and make a joke about the invisible pudge there, but she doesn’t want to be _too_ mean to him, as he is walking her home.

“Exercise makes you live longer! And it also means I’ll survive in a horror movie, ‘cause I have more stamina,” Sam argues as they approach her tiny house. Her parents are visiting family for the weekend, so the windows are dark and the driveway is empty. She pulls her keys out from her bra, and Josh whistles.

“That’s hot.”

“Shut up. I just didn’t want to bring a purse!” Unlocking the door, she bows elaborately when she opens it.

“Ladies first.”

“Hardy har, Sammy.” He shuffles in and stands uneasily at the edge of the living room. “Should I... take off my shoes?”

“Nah, our carpet’s old. It doesn’t matter. Hey, how are you getting back to the party? You can’t walk that far,” Sam asks. She feels bad enough that he walked her all the way home, now he has to walk all the way back? Not on her watch, Sam Kamkin looks out for her friends.

“I’ll call you a cab, or something, since you walked me home,” she says, pulling out her phone to google a local cab company. It’ll be stupidly expensive, but she can’t leave him hanging, not after he walked her home and gave her his sweater.

“I’ll be fine!” He waves her off. Sam frowns at him, and Josh fiddles with the hem of his shirt as she kicks off her shoes and drops her keys on the table with a clatter.

“No. If you insist on not taking a cab, just stay here. We have a couch. It’s not designer, but it’s super comfortable!” Sam offers, “I know my dad has some extra sweatpants, it’ll be fine. They’re gone for the weekend. No one will care!”

Josh looks genuinely caught off guard by the offer, and Sam pauses. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but she _has_ to do something for him.

“Really?” he asks. It’s hard to see his face in the darkness of the living room, so Sam can’t quite make out the flicker of emotions that play across it.

“Of course! Sam Kamkin does not leave her friends in the cold. You can take a shower, if you want, or I think we have some food in the fridge—”

“Sam?” Josh interrupts, and she pauses in her rambling.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

***************************

She tries to dissociate the Josh she knew and the Wendigo before her, she really does—but the parallels between the gruesome wolf pelt that is currently keeping her warm and the sweater he gave her so many years before are glaringly obvious.

Sam shakes her head, drawing Josh’s attention to the movement. She _has_ to stop thinking about him like Josh. He may still be clutching the last few threads of his humanity, but it can’t last. Even Hannah, the sweetest person Sam knew, succumbed to the curse of the Wendigo. What chances did Josh have to resist? She has to escape before Josh decides that she makes a tasty, unguarded meal.

While for now, the Wendigo has decided for whatever reason to _spare her, take care of her, whatever_ , she can’t let her guard down. Sam Kamkin has survived this long, she doesn’t plan on stopping now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a big thanks for [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas) for being my main inspiration and incredible beta, I couldn't ask for a better reader!
> 
> Also, I HC Sam as russian, and she doesn't have a last name so I gave her one. Also, not for this chapter really, but I also HC that she has anxiety, which is one of the reasons that she and Josh grew really close after losing Hannah and Beth. I promise, things will get better in this fic! It's a _slow_ fix-it fic. This chapter is a bit more flashback than anything, but I needed to flesh out the relationship. Next chapter has more wendigo!Josh being cute (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) to join me in Sam x Josh and Until Dawn hell. I never knew that this game was going to take over my life.


	3. Nice shootin', tex

A weird routine begins to form in the mines, much to Sam’s chagrin. Josh the Wendigo goes out, presumably to wander the mines and surrounding woods, and brings back bloody little prizes like squirrels, rabbits, or the occasional bird which he then rips into little pieces and drops into her lap. She tries to avoid the bloody flesh, she really does, holding back a grimace every time he does it. But it’s been days, and when the gnawing hunger finally takes over, she plugs her nose and swallows bits of the raw meat whole.

She’s a vegan, but survival wins over personal choices at the moment. Josh the Wendigo makes weird chirruping noises when she swallows, which heightens the strangeness of the situation. For whatever reason, he wants her to live, so she complies. For now.

While he’s away, she practices hobbling on her healing leg. Maybe Wendigos have healing spit or some shit, but it’s on the mend faster than she expected. She practices until she feels confident—she’s going to escape.

Josh will leave at the beginning of the night to hunt before returning a good few hours later to putter around the tunnels near the cave. Sam learns to identify his unique cry because it still has shreds of his own voice in it. She hears the other Wendigos occasionally, the distant echo of their shrieks grating on her ears, but they haven’t encroached on this part of the mine, at least, not yet.

Josh’s hands have lengthened into claws, razor sharp talons that appear in the edges of her nightmares. Sometimes, in her dreams, she escaped the mines with Mike, and she dreams of warm blankets and her soft bed and wakes up with tears dripping down her face, Josh lying next to her, face soft in sleep even with grotesque fangs twisting his face.

Those dreams are the worst—she much prefers the ones where she dies in the mines, or in the woods, or falling from cliffs. Because at least then she can wake up and feel her strong heartbeat and convince herself she’s alive. But in the dreams where she made it out, and they’re all alive back in sunny Los Angeles and she laughs until she cries because she made it, they made it—she wakes up. She wakes up in this dark, decrepit mine with the devastating knowledge that her friends abandoned her, that Mike abandoned her.

Sure, her and Mike hadn’t been close since Hannah and Beth had gone missing, but they were friends—or at least, she thought they were. But each day that passes extinguishes the hope that she’ll have help in her escape. So she plans. Sam is nothing if not methodical. She sets up her plan with her vague knowledge of the mines’ layout in mind.

She’ll leave after Josh does for the night and make it back to where she split up with Mike. She’ll climb up that rock face if it kills her, and she’ll make it back to the cabin. There are lighters there, and she’ll wait it out until dawn and then call for help. The Washingtons have a phone in the lodge; she’ll dial any number she can until someone comes for her and she can leave this nightmare behind, tell them the truth—Josh is dead. There’s nothing that can be done, no one left up here that can be saved, so burn the damned thing down.

She thinks Josh can scent her unease and impatience, or maybe he just senses her movement—she can’t seem to stop herself from fidgeting and shifting, and suddenly the enclosed space is unbearable.

She’s never been claustrophobic before, but the mines are stifling and her head is spinning, world tilting in her vision as sudden hysteria grips her heart and chokes her throat—oh god, she’s dying. She’s going to die. She can’t make it out of the mines alone. She’s signing her death sentence, but if she waits for Josh to snap and finally eat her, isn’t that worse—and distantly, she notes she’s having a panic attack, but isn’t that normal under the circumstances? And she can’t believe it’s taken her so long to have another one, but Josh the Wendigo is next to her, leaning against her shoulder, the heavy weight of him grounding her in the moment and allowing her lungs to open so she can gulp the stagnant air.

Sam tries to regulate her breathing like she’s been taught and push away the mind-numbing fear. It isn’t until she realizes that Josh won’t leave, not when she’s panicking, that she’s able to steel herself. Sam counts her breaths, grounding herself with the slip of her fingers against the slimy rocks, the rasp of the dusty air in her throat, and after some time she feels her heartbeat begin to slow.

After what feels like years, Josh tilts his head at her carefully. When she remains still, jerkily, he begins to move out of the cave. His motions have started to shift into those of the Wendigos—jolting and quick, but he’s otherwise relatively human compared to the others. She carefully wraps her heart in iron and locks it down, visualizing it systematically to distract from the feeling of impending doom settling in her soul.

She has to wait for Josh to be gone at least twenty minutes before he’s far enough away for her to make a break for it, and she’s just finished her mental exercise when she decides it’s been long enough. Carefully, she unties the clumsy knots that have been holding her splint together. The wood clatters to the ground, and she stands. Her left leg is shaky and sore, but viable, so she hobbles out, leaving the wolf pelt folded on the ground next to her abandoned splint.

Her breathing hitches. It’s her first time out of the cave since she was carried into it by Josh, and she moves slowly and deliberately, ears pricked for any potential danger.

Water drips from the pale stalagmites on the ceiling, and she jumps, heartrate spiking, but she shakes her head and moves on. She resists the urge to talk herself through the loneliness, as any extraneous noise will draw unwanted attention. Sam picks her way quietly back to the steep pile of rocks that peak about fifteen feet up, slivers of moonlight and a whiff of fresh, crisp air tempting her.

Once she gets out of the mines, things are far from over, but even getting that far would be an achievement. While years of track and rock climbing have toned her muscles and sharpened her reflexes, she knows that muscles atrophy quickly, and her left leg is already beginning to tire from this short exercise. She can’t give up yet—she won’t. She’s a self-proclaimed fountain of endless optimism, a little setback won’t phase her.

Gripping the stones in front of her, she hoists herself up, and despite the circumstances, it feels good to be climbing, to be doing _something_. Sam loses herself in the joy of it, for a moment, but it’s a moment too long—the Wendigo shriek somewhere above her head has her clinging to the rocks, fear sending adrenaline shooting through her veins. Sam freezes, pressing herself tight against the rocks, She finds it’s hard to stay still. Her left leg trembles from the strain, but it’s the gravel that bounces down the rock face next to her that gives her away.

The Wendigo screams again, dead eyes finding her in the darkness, fangs dripping with saliva and blood. It has already hunted tonight, but it is hungry now, hungry always, and it leaps off the opposite rock face and lands behind her.

Sam drops down, the short fall jarring her knees, but she resists the urge to flinch. The Wendigo pauses momentarily as it inches forward towards her. Her heart drops—it’s smarter than the others, working on the assumption that if she stops moving she’ll still be where she was. Fuck this. This isn’t how she wanted to die. She didn’t even get to breathe the fresh air—

A new screech echoes off the walls, and Sam resists the urge to turn towards the noise. She doesn’t need to look anyway. It’s Josh. Of course it’s Josh, because this night _couldn’t get any better_ , and he’s probably going to eat her now. _What a way to go._

But Josh only has eyes for the other Wendigo, and they circle each other like they’re in a bad western film, if the cowboys were replaced by cannibalizing, human husks possessed by evil spirits.

Josh makes the first move, leaping with a speed she didn’t know he had, claws extended in an attempt to gouge out the other Wendigo’s eyes. He misses the eyes, but his claws find purchase in its shoulder and it screams again, the sound like gargled glass as it attempts to push Josh away, only, he digs his claws in deeper.

It screams louder, and Sam covers her ears. However, that only draws the attention of the Wendigo— _shit_.

The Wendigo tries to leap at her, but Josh yanks it down, rolling and skidding across the gravel as each one tries to dig its claws into the other. Sam briefly contemplates trying to escape, but she doesn’t think she can climb that fast.

Josh wins the tug-o-war, and digs his claws into the other’s throat—Sam barely has time to avert her eyes before a terrible ripping noise echoes through the mine, followed by a thump that must be the head landing somewhere amongst the rocks.

Sam looks back at Josh, who drops the headless body with an abrupt movement and stalks towards her. She stumbles back, hands clutching at the outcrop behind her for a loose stone or _something_ that she can throw at him, her adrenaline spiking.

_Fuck, fuck, goddammit. I should’ve run, or climbed, or anything besides standing here like a gaping fish! Focus, Kamkin!_

He’s in front of her, breaths coming in short bursts through his fangs, blood smeared across his face. He was out hunting before this, and he... came to rescue her? To eat her? But before she can react, Josh grabs her and throws her over his shoulder like he’s shouldering a potato sack. She bounces against his back with every jolting step he takes, and it’s miles away from the first time he carried her to the cave—so tenderly, like she’d break if he so much as breathed wrong.

As she comes down from her adrenaline high, she slumps over him, content that at least now he doesn’t plan on snacking on her. Afterall, he did save her. How did he even find her? Maybe it was his uncanny sense of timing striking again, like it always did when she had fucked up in the past.

They make it back to the shitty cave, and rage fires through her. Of all the endings of her escape attempt, this didn’t even make it on her radar. It was either do or die, there was no try, but here she was—alive, unharmed, and back in the arms of Josh the Wendigo.

“Fuck me,” she mutters, and if Josh was actually Josh, he would respond with something stupid like ‘gladly’ or ‘my pleasure,’ and she’d punch his arm and they’d laugh it off. But Josh _isn’t_ here. The Wendigo before her now is a shitty caricature of him, made up of a few distilled characteristics like he could even be _simplified_ into three adjectives.

Josh drops her in her usual spot near the back of the cave. There’s a new pelt on the floor, caribou from the looks of it, and this one is better cleaned than the first, almost meticulously free of extraneous flesh. He pushes her onto it, and she’s already mentally preparing herself for him to start licking her scrapes in that weird ritual he has, but he doesn’t do that—he lays on her. Like he’s shielding her from the world, or shielding the world from her. He just fucking _lays on her_. A dead weight. And while Sam isn’t exactly a waif, Josh is 5’9 and built solidly.

“What? No. Move, Josh—or whatever you are. Get off,” Sam says, pushing at the Wendigo, but he only growls in response and locks his arms in place. If Josh was human, she would have no problem rolling him off of her, but a Wendigo-ed Josh has super strength and is not budging.

Sam stops resisting for a moment, and Josh grumbles, resting his head in the crook of her shoulder. It would almost be cute if she couldn’t feel his fangs scraping lightly at the sensitive skin on her neck.

Her pulse is pounding. Fear or something like it overcomes her, and she begins to scramble beneath him to push him off, but Josh only rumbles louder in response. After a few fruitless moments, she gives in. Eventually, she surmises, he’ll roll off of her. Resisting would just make him hunker down for longer. Josh may be a Wendigo, but he is still a stubborn sonuvabitch, and he’s obviously retained other traits from his humanity, so why not stubbornness?

Sam underestimates just how much the constant spike and fall of adrenaline would exhaust her, and she falls asleep, warm for the first time she can remember.

But when she sleeps, she dreams of the past.

***************************

“Oh, Hannah, you have to get that dress. You look beautiful in it!” Sam gushes, and Hannah smiles shyly, twirling in the dressing room.

“Really?” Her hands fiddle with the satiny fabric, and Beth decides to chime in.

“Yes, obviously! Mike’s jaw will drop when he sees you in that,” Beth assures her sister, and Hannah droops.

“Didn’t you hear? Mike asked Emily,” she sighs, sitting down. “He’s definitely friendzoning me.”

“His loss,” Sam shrugs. “Hell, Han, I’ll ask you to prom. Flowers and everything.”

“Ohmygod, Sammy, you have to!” Beth nods decisively, clapping her hands. “Girl power!”

They all burst into peals of giggles, and Hannah strips quickly and shimmies back into her jeans and tank. They troop down to the register with their purchases, talking of hairstyles and shoes. Sam plans on going back to the Washington mansion with them to begin a One Tree Hill marathon. She hasn’t been to their home in a while. Apparently Josh was sick and the Washington Parentals hadn’t wanted anyone over.

“We’re home!” Beth hollers as they stomp over the doorway. Sam carefully toes off her shoes. Mrs. Washington has a _thing_ about her persian carpets, and Sam doesn’t plan on getting on her bad side yet.

“Fucking _finally_. How long does it take to shop for prom dresses?” Josh grouses from the couch. He certainly doesn’t look great. There are bags under his eyes and his hair looks unwashed. He’s also wearing a sweater despite the warm April air, but she only shrugs, dropping down next to him on the couch.

“Long time no see, Joshua. Glad to see you’re still with us,” she teases, and he winces, almost imperceptibly. Sam’s catches it and pauses.

“You... _were_ sick, right?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Josh tries to joke. He starts to shift away, but Sam grabs his hand.

“Josh, I just want you to know, I am here for you if you need someone to talk to.”

Sam’s afraid he’ll pull his hand away and close himself off, but call her a bleeding heart or call her a veteran, she knows what a breakdown looks like.

After a drawn out pause, he replies, “Thanks, Sammy.”

Hannah and Beth burst back into the living room from the kitchen, and she squeezes his hand before withdrawing.

“Oh my god. Beth just got asked to prom by Jesse!” Hannah squeals, and Sam turns sideways on the couch.

“Is that the upperclassman she’s been having all that unresolved sexual tension with?” Sam squints at Beth, and she blushes.

“Ha, I _knew_ he was gonna ask you!” she gloats.

“Now, who are you going with, Sammy?” Josh asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “Junior prom is a very important time in a young girl’s life! Underage drinking, virginity-losing, the whole shebang! Who’s taking you to the _bone zone?”_

“Oh my god, Joshy, that phrase is never going to catch on,” Hannah complains, and Josh shrugs.

“It will eventually.”

“I’m actually taking your lovely sister to prom.” Sam says, gesturing to Hannah. “That whole virginity nonsense and the _bone zone_ is not in the cards for us.”

Josh looks vaguely appalled. “How dare you desecrate the sacredness of prom?”

Hannah and Beth carry their dresses upstairs while Sam and Josh argue the finer points of prom.

“You’re supposed to lose your virginity! It’s a prom thing, a classic! Haven’t you ever seen a movie?”

“Josh, that’s irrelevant on two parts: first, life isn’t like the movies, and second, I already lost my virginity. That ship has sailed, buddy.” Sam sighs, frustrated.

“Wait, what? _To whom?_ Am I gonna have to defend your honor, Sammy? I’m scrawny, but I could take ‘em.”

Sam blushes. She hadn’t meant to let that slip out, but she got caught in banter, and now Josh will never let this go. He’s like a dog with a bone. When she whispers the name to him, making him promise not to tell Hannah or Beth, Josh turns an interesting shade of red.

“Our dear class president, Mr. Munroe? _Seriously?_ ”

“Josh, it was a long time ago. It didn’t click. We’re still friends, but we figured we should get it over with.” Sam fiddles with the hem of her shirt. Josh’s scrutiny is heavy. She blushes under his gaze, fidgeting relentlessly.

“I will never think of Mikey the same way.”

Sam pats his knee. “I’m sure you’ll get over it, Washington.”

They sit in companionable silence for a long moment, then Sam breaks it. “Josh?” she begins, nervous. “What I said earlier? I really do mean it. I’ve... been in bad places before, but verbalizing it can be grounding.”

“I know, Sammy. I’m just not ready yet.”

Sam nods, understanding the implicit promise in _yet_.

***************************

She awakens with a small gasp and a twisting in her gut, but the comforting weight on top of her lulls her back into sleep, dreamless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Join me at [bisexualimperator](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) to cry about my otps and all the feelings they make me have. Also, I'm excited to share bonus content written by my beautiful roommate and beta, [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas):
> 
> “LAY ON ME HUSBAND,” Sam screams, reaching out toward her saucy wendigo mate. She had to say, the blood dripping from his mouth was EXTRA sexy toNIGHT. “COME TO ME AND LAYETH YOUR HEAD.”
> 
> To prepare yourself for next chapter, feel free to listen to "If I Tremble" by Front Porch Step on repeat, it's what I did to write it. 
> 
> As always, your kind comments make me smile and make me so excited to write! So please, R&R.


	4. Thirty-love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a long-ish flashback, but don't worry, next chapter has plenty of action. And feels. Lots, and lots of _feels._
> 
> Also, I appreciate all the wonderful feedback I'm getting! Every comment and kudos makes me so happy, I'm glad you guys are loving this fic!

Josh is hovering.

Josh is hovering like she’s a wounded baby chick, and it’s _freaking her out._ He didn’t leave to do his customary hunting, instead stalking around the cave like she’s going to make a break for it at any second, and Sam resists the urge to bang her head against the wall.

“I’m not about to run, you know,” Sam offers. Josh just stares at her, and she almost wants to laugh at the disbelieving look in his eyes. While his mouth may be full of fangs, his eyes are still heartbreakingly human, and Sam fights to stifle her hope. If Hannah, the sweetest person alive, became a Wendigo, then what chance did Josh have in resisting the curse?

Thoughts running in hopeless circles, Sam watches the Wendigo pace with increasing agitation. He slept on top of her all night, and though she’s loathe to admit it, his presence comforted her amidst dreams of the past, the nightmares that plagued her intermittently throughout the night.

To her amazement, he eventually leaves, though Sam doesn’t fool herself into thinking he’ll be gone for long. She can see the transformation beginning to overtake him in the way that he lopes, more animal than man, contradicting the tender way that he continues to treat her.

Shedding the pelt he had forced on her last night, Sam stands and stretches. While escape may be off the table for now, there’s no reason to let herself get out of shape, so she begins to do some simple exercises on the floor—push-ups, planks, all the exercises she hated on the track team but kept her strong throughout the years.

Sam is interrupted three-quarters of the way through her exercises by Josh’s return. He’s clutching balled up fabric in his arms—old, ragged and torn bits of clothing, by the look of it. He moves directly toward the abandoned pelts and begins arranging them carefully.

She’s curious, but continues in her exercises, determined to at least keep up some kind of regime so she can engineer another escape plan. Maybe, when she gets out in the real world, she can figure out if there’s a cure for Wendigo-ness. Maybe she can come back and cure him, maybe, maybe, maybe—

Maybes don’t mean anything here in this purgatory, and there’s no room for grey area in survival. She can’t keep thinking about Josh like he’s, well, _Josh_.

Sam’s interrupted yet again by a clawed hand on her shin, stilling her in her exercises, and he tugs on her, twice. She glances at him, and his brows are furrowed in that way that he has when he’s overthinking something. He gestures towards a shoddily built pile of clothes and pelts.

Her nose is pretty deadened from the terrible smells she’s encountered throughout her time in the mine, but the pile of fabric and fur Josh has created is the _exact_ essence of all of them, distilled into the most smelly concoction possible.

“I’m _not_ sleeping in that.”

His brows furrow deeper, and she resists the urge to reach out and smooth out the wrinkle between them like Beth used to, joking that her brother was simultaneously an old man and a perverted boy. He tugs on her leg more insistently this time, and she sighs.

She wonders when, precisely, his fangs stopped making her heartrate spike, when his claws stopped kindling cold fear in the pit of her stomach. _It’s amazing the things that the human body can adapt to_ , she thinks idly as she gives in to Josh’s prodding.

Sam moves to sit in the pile of clothes, when a switch finally flips in her brain— _is he building her a nest?_

As she settles into it, trying to ignore the smell, Josh makes a contented humming sound that is at odds with his uneven fangs. The clothes used to build this nest, she guesses, must be from the old miners. They smell like death, to be sure, but Sam is adaptable, and the pile is warm. Man, her life really has become a shitshow—what is a sensible, L.A. girl like herself doing in an abandoned mine with her friend-turned-Wendigo, letting him build nests for her when he should have eaten her at first sight?

But she has to think of the future. Sam’s a practical girl—she’ll escape or die trying. Surely, once she makes it back to the cabin she’ll be able to get in contact with someone—someone will come back for her. If anyone, it would be Mike. Afterall, she came back for him, saved him in the mines. They had been friends for a long time. Sure, sometimes he was an overconfident asshole, but he’s loyal where it counts.

She was never as close to Jess and Em, and while she did like them, there has always been a disconnect. Her humor has always been too odd, too quirky for them, which is why she always gotten along better with Hannah and Josh than some of the others. But they were her friends, goddammit, and friends don’t abandon each other. Chris, too, and Ashley—they were friends, and they came back for her in the mansion before everything had gone totally to shit.

So, maybe Matt, Jess, and Em were unlikely to come back for her—but Mike, Chris, and Ashley are still her friends. Her heart drops—she’s banking on the fact that they’re alive, that they made it out of this hellhole. She should have made the most of her time with them, tried to reconnect better with Mike. They all fucked up last year, and she wasted her time with them on petty bickering and shit talk.

Sam thinks of the last time they’d had a real, honest-to-god conversation—it was before Hannah and Beth disappeared and were left for dead. She had been so incredibly _angry_ at him for doing that to her best friend. He knew, _he knew_ how much Hannah had liked him, and Sam had never seen such a beautiful, naive crush in her life. Mike hadn’t felt the same, but he was good-natured and kind about Hannah’s adoration. But somewhere, it changed. She’s not sure how—Emily may be a bitch, but she had never been unnaturally cruel, and neither was Jess. She can’t help but think that Blackwood Mountain polluted their minds and hardened their hearts, leading to the tragedy.

But the past is in the past, and she’d love to let sleeping dog lie, but she can’t help but reminisce—there isn’t a lot else to do in this godforsaken mine.

***************************

“Sam, if you don’t stop fidgeting, I’m going to burn you with this curling iron,” Beth threatens, and Hannah clucks at her.

“Stop it, you guys. Tonight’s going to be perfect, and my prom date will _not_ have a burn mark on her neck!”

They’re all standing around in various states of deshabille, prom dresses hanging carefully in the open closet. Hannah is in the midst of doing her own makeup, and Sam’s having her hair carefully curled and pinned up by Beth. Sam wanted to keep it simple, but Beth had been working on a pinterest board since Christmas, and Hannah had backed up her twin.

So here she is, risking life and limb just so the Washington twins can have the perfect prom. Sam wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Shit, the corsages!” Hannah curses suddenly, and Beth jerks at the suddenness.

“Fuck!” Sam curses as the curling iron bumps against her neck. _That will leave a mark_ , Sam winces internally.

“Double fuck,” Beth says. “Hannah, text Josh to pick them up. Boys only take like five minutes to get ready, anyways.”

Seventy-three minutes later, the girls sweep down the stairs. They had gingerly covered the burn mark on Sam’s neck with layers of foundation and declared the patch-up job as passable.

Josh, Ashley, and Chris are waiting for them downstairs, chatting. Matt and Emily have just arrived as well, exchanging corsages amongst kisses near the front door. Ashley looks beautiful in her short dress, and Sam knows they’re only going as a group because Chris hadn’t grown the balls to ask Ashley. Josh is taking third-wheeling remarkably well.

Sam tries in vain not to notice how well Josh’s tuxedo fits him, or the neat boutonniere pinned to his lapel. Josh glances upward as the trio comes trooping down the stairs, and in the neutral lighting Sam could almost swear that the tips of his ears are red.

Hannah had picked out her dress—and Beth had given her seal of approval. It’s slinky and black, the only decoration are some tasteful sequins on the bodice, and even Sam has to admit that it’s a beautiful dress.

The only downside is the important fact that it’s lacking straps, and she fights the urge to hike the dress upwards.

“Lookin’ fine, ladies,” Chris says, spreading his hands in a faux-grand gesture. “I’m _so_ glad you could finally join us. I was worried you had fallen down the toilet or something!”

“Hardy har, Chris. You’re hilarious,” Sam drawls, and waves at Mike and Emily.

“You look so great!” Hannah gushes at Ashley, and the latter blushes.

Sam ends up chatting with Emily and Mike, and she reluctantly concedes that Emily might be able to put up with Mike’s bullshit and then some. She feels Josh’s eyes on her, which only serves to make her incredibly nervous. But then they’re all clambering into the fancy limo the Washingtons rented, and off they go on the supposed “best night” of their high school lives.

Unlike other proms held in high school gyms with balloon arches, their high school rents out the top story of a skyscraper downtown, and the view of downtown is stunning and sparkling.

She stands near the windows away from the crush of the crowd, fiddling with her corsage as she maps the lights with her eyes, and she jumps when someone taps her shoulder.

“Woah there, Sam, didn’t mean to make you jump!” Mike laughs, and she relaxes.

“What can I do for you. Mr. Class President?”

“Is Josh rubbing off on you? He is the only one who calls me that,” Mike complains, and Sam laughs.

“Sorry, it just fits too well.”

“Anyway, I came to ask—may I have this dance?” He bows elaborately, and wiggles his eyebrows. “For old time’s sake?”

Eyebrows raised, Sam acquiesces. “Well, when you put it that way,” and she lets him lead her to the dance floor.

They twirl mindlessly to an unremarkable song, when Sam keeps catching Mike glancing surreptitiously at a spot behind her.

“Is Emily glaring daggers at me? Just tell me, and you can pour punch on me and tell her it’s all my fault,” Sam offers, but Mike shakes his head with a chuckle.

“I’ll be damned,” and he smiles in that weirdly mature, _knowing_ way of his that Sam’s having none of.

“ _Why_ , exactly, are you smiling like the cat that got the canary?”

“I should be asking what you told Josh that’s making him look at me like I stole his favorite toy on the playground?”

Mike twirls her again, and she briefly sees Josh leaning against the wall, glass of punch in hand, face unreadable as he stares at her and Mike. Something clicks then, and she feels herself color.

“ _Samantha Kamkin!_ I do believe you’re blushing!”

“We had a difference of opinion on the meaning of prom in a girl’s life.”

“O... kay?”

“Let me finish—the point is that he knows that you were my _first._ ” Sam’s blushing fully now, trying her best to avoid Mike’s eyes.

“Okay, that makes more sense,” Mike admits as he steals another glance at Josh. “Man, he’s _really_ not happy about this.”

“Yeah, well, I just don’t think he knew how to react, you know? I’m kind of like his weird, adopted little sister, and no one ever wants to think about their siblings having sex,” Sam argues.

Mike looks at her with incredulous disbelief. “Sure, Sam, whatever you say. Anyway, good dance. I’ve gotta find Emily before she skins me alive for leaving her alone for so long.”

Sam imitates the noise of a whip cracking, and Mike, ever the adult, sticks his tongue out at her. _I don’t know how I ever thought he was mature_ , she thinks wryly.

Sam makes her way over to Josh, who’s still looking at her like he’s trying to solve one of those super-hard sudoku puzzles that Hannah likes to do for fun.

“Josh, your forehead is gonna wrinkle up prematurely if you keep that up,” Sam says and he offers her a small grin.

“Sammy, are you concerned about my dashing good looks? I’m flattered. Though, it appears you are currently preoccupied with Mr. Class President. I saw him twirling you around the dance floor.” He runs a hand through his hair, and though he tries to come off as nonchalant, she can see the glimmer of hurt in his eyes.

“Josh, he asked me. We’ve been friends for a while. It’s not a big deal. You can stop with the big brother routine, Washington.”

“Big brother routine?” Josh cocks an eyebrow, and Sam shakes her head.

“That’s not important now. Dance with me!”

“I’m... sorry?”

“Josh, _you_ were the one who gave me the big speal about prom being an important part of a young girl’s life. And here I am, a humble young girl at her prom, and you won’t even dance with me?” Sam says, mock-offended. “Really, Josh. You hypocrite.”

“Woah there, Sammy. I didn’t say no. I was just humbled that you would ask me,” Josh replies smoothly, holding his hand out. “Shall we?”

It’s a song she knows and likes, and the lyrics are quiet and sincere.

_And if I tremble at the sight of you, it’s not because I’m cold_

“Hmm, I like this song,” Sam notes quietly as they sway in the midst of the couples on the dance floor.

“I was just thinking how weird it is to be able to see your face. You’re normally too short,” Josh comments, and she playfully smacks his arm.

“Watch it, Washington. I can still kick your ass, even in five inch stilettos.”

“Oh, that’s hot,” Josh leers, but it lacks his usual heart, and Sam rolls her eyes. “But seriously, I think you could even compete in a fucking Steeplechase race and kick ass in those. You’re a regular Lara Croft.”

They dance quietly for a moment, the rhythm of the song enough for them. Music can say what people can’t sometimes, and the look in Josh’s eyes is proof enough—for all his bluster, bravado, and sex jokes, he cares about her—they have a connection.

And for now, that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my roommate [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas/pseuds/angelheadedcas) for being the best beta and helping me talk out the plot points! The outline is much more fleshed out now, and I feel a lot better. Please R&R, and let me know what you think!  
> Also, prepare yourself for a _feel_ trip, guys. All aboard the feels express, as we get into that rising action. (¬‿¬)
> 
> I think my roommate is considering homicide because I keep playing "If I Tremble" when I write. It just helps me get in the proper emotional mind frame to write these sweet babies. 
> 
> Find me at [bisexualimperator](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


	5. Leave it to the pros, bros

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pack your lunch, we're going on a _feel trip_.

Sam can see the transformation eating away at him, when he thinks she’s not looking. The lengthening of the claws, how his mouth twists hideously with the rapid growth of his fangs. He’s beginning to hunch, his arms dangling longer at his sides.

She tries to bury it, but she’s scared. She doesn’t want to be here when he loses those last shreds of humanity. But she’s still here, and she can see that he’s trying to resist, trying to hold on, and it twists her heart. And maybe she’s foolish, but she’s going crazy without human communication. So she begins talking to him, even knowing the slim odds that it will actually help. Sam doesn’t know if he understands her, but it can’t hurt, right?

“Josh, please, stop bringing me stuff for the nest. It smells bad enough in here already, so unless it’s been washed recently, _stop bringing it into the cave,_ ” she stresses as she watches him enter through the mouth of the cave. There’s subtlety in the way he moves, in his ongoing attempt to control the jerkiness of his motions in front of her—he tries carefully to be slow, deliberate.

Her best guess is he’s noticed the way she reacts to the other Wendigos, and doesn’t want to scare her. It makes her heart twist tighter, and she swallows dryly. He had found a metal cup, something left behind by the miners, and brought her water—god knows if it’s sanitary, but she’s desperate, and the human body can’t survive longer than three days without water.

Josh ignores her, delicately placing more ancient, smelly clothes in her makeshift nest, and Sam sighs.

“I’m going to do my exercises. You can go hunt, okay?” she tells him, stretching her calves out and pointing to the exit of the cave. “Go on. I’ll be fine.”

Sometimes, she swears he understands her, because he pauses and looks at her, and then moves slowly out of the cave, to go hunt or eat or whatever Wendigos do when the sun sets.

Sam continues her exercises, pleased by the progress her left leg has made. It’s certainly not back to perfect health, but she can rest weight on it without it shaking, and it’s stopped aching all the time. She begins to plan again in the midst of her left plank, breath steadying out.

The water dripping slowly in their small alcove helps her keep time, the electric light that the old man Wendigo hunter had somehow managed to keep going provides a gentle glow. She tries not to think about what else is in the mines with her.

She needs to get out closer to dawn, when there is less time to worry about Wendigos and other things going wrong—but Josh tends to do his hunting towards the beginning of the night, after which he comes back to stalk the area closest to the cave, the rumbles of his cry presumably warning off other Wendigos.

 _It’s for his own good_ , she assures herself. _I can get out, and maybe get help for him, maybe there’s a cure, maybe the process can be reversed—and maybe pigs can fly, too_. Sam scolds herself for the naively optimistic thoughts, but it’s hard not to be optimistic when she can see snatches of his personality peeking out from beneath the monster's skin.

He finally stopped sleeping directly on top of her after her first disastrous escape attempt, but now he sleeps curled around her, like she’ll freeze to death or vanish in the middle of the night if he’s not touching her. It’s sweet, in a way, and she hates seeing him like this. Her time alone gives her the chance to reminisce, and she can’t stop thinking about the prank—no one had seen it coming, and Sam mentally berates herself.

Josh needed help, and she thought she was doing her best. The two a.m. phone calls and the long drives out of the city, talking, remembering, regretting—she thought they had a _connection_.

But Josh felt the need for revenge, and she hadn’t seen that coming, she hadn’t been enough, and even though she knows she can’t blame herself, she still shoulders the burden.

Yes, Josh had fucked up, but so had the rest of them. They weren’t there for him when he so obviously needed support and understanding, and his problems had run deeper than any of them ever knew.

She moves into a right plank as tears of frustration begin sliding down her cheeks. Man, she’s been crying a lot, but Sam figures it’s excusable considering everything she’s been through. Everything that has happened was preventable, but hindsight is 20/20—carving her missteps in her skin won’t erase them from the past, as tempting as the thought is.

There’s a clatter from outside the cave, and she pauses in her exercises. Josh is typically quieter than that in an attempt to pacify her. He has an uncanny sense for when she’s scared or sad and does his best to prevent it. His go-to method of pacifying her is laying on top of her, and Sam briefly wonders if it’s instinctual, or maybe something else, something that he remembers—Sam told him, months ago, that she likes using pressure to ground herself when her anxiety gets bad. Sports bras, spandex, thermals, ten comforters piled on her bed in July, anything that could provide the weight to ground her thoughts.

She wonders, oh, does she wonder—are Wendigos capable of a human feat of caring like that? Is this proof, despite what that old man said, that Wendigos still have human aspects? She remembers Chris telling her that the old man swore there is nothing human left behind those glassy eyes. But here she is, living with proof that _he was wrong_.

There’s a clatter, louder now, and Sam decides to investigate. If it’s Josh, the worst he’ll do is slowly herd her back into the cave to her nest. She steps outside and immediately notices the mine is brighter than it was before,. She searches the ceiling and the surrounding walls for a hole to the outside, anything that would explain the sudden increase in visibility.

 _Ah, there is is_ , Sam thinks, satisfied. In the left edge of the cave, the wood that had boarded up an entrance thirty feet up has begun to rot, letting slivers of moonlight into the mines.

“Sam?”

She whirls around, her heart in her throat. _That’s Mike’s voice. Unless I’m going crazy, which is possible._

“Sam? Holy fucking christ—Sam! Up here!” There he is, arm breaking his way through the boards of wood, waving frantically. Relief floods her chest to know he’s alive and safe, that he came back for her, but fear overtakes it just as quickly.

“Mike, you’ve got to get out of here. You don’t understand, he’ll be back soon!” Sam hisses quietly, looking around wildly for Josh. While Josh may have protective instincts over her, she knows he won't feel the same way in regards to Mike—worst case scenario, he’ll kill Mike, and best case scenario... Mike wins the fight with Josh-the-Wendigo, which leaves a sick pit in her stomach.

Mike has always been a “for the greater good” kinda guy—after all, he almost shot Emily when he thought she would become a Wendigo from a bite. Sam knows that killing Josh won’t exactly be a hard decision for Mike, especially because Josh is well on his way to becoming a full Wendigo.

“ _Who_ will be back soon, Sam? Hold on, I’m coming to get you,” Mike says, moving away from the wooden barrier, intent on finding a new entrance into the cave.

“Fuck, wait—Mike, _Josh is a Wendigo_.”

“What the fuck—I thought he was dead! And how are _you_ not dead?” Mike sputters, thrown off-kilter.

“I don’t know, but that old guy was wrong. They’re still part human—at least Josh is. He hasn’t killed me. He’s actually taken care of me! I would be dead if he wasn’t here,” Sam admits honestly.

Mike’s face screws up at this. Moral relativity isn’t his thing. It’s either _black_ or _white_ , _good_ or _bad_ , _necessary_ or _unnecessary_.

“Whatever the case is, I’m getting you out of there. Sam, I—we thought you were _dead_.” His voice breaks slightly, and she feels tears lining her lashes again. “I was coming back for the bodies—Beth deserves a proper burial, so did Josh, and so did _you_ ,” he continues. “They wouldn’t let me out of the hospital until they’d ruled out infection.” Mike wiggles his three remaining fingers, the stumps carefully wrapped in clean bandages.

“You don’t understand, Mike. You’ve got to wait—” Sam says furiously, frustrated by Mike not understanding the gravity of the situation, when she hears the off-rhythm thumping that characterizes Josh’s lope. “Just stay still, don’t move, and be _fucking quiet_ ,” she adds in a low voice.

Josh enters the wider area outside their cave from one of the off-shoot tunnels, and he pauses when he sees Sam outside of the safety of the cave. Grumbling, he approaches her and begins to herd her back towards it. She tries to breathe evenly, praying that she doesn’t give away Mike. She doesn’t want a fight. She doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.

 _You don’t want Josh to get hurt even though he’s a Wendigo, you blind fool,_ a traitorous voice inside her mind whispers, and she tries to banish the thought. _I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Josh or Mike._

Sam allows Josh to walk her back into the cave, heart thumping furiously because she knows Josh will catch on. He’ll see Mike. She has to distract him—

He leads her back to the nest, and by impulse, she grabs his wrist, tugging him down.

“Sit with me,” she says, voice slightly hoarse, and he resists her tug. She pulls again, more insistently, and slowly, he sits next to her. Heart in her throat, Sam slowly lowers herself into his lap. Josh stiffens. She deliberately relaxes against him, and he follows her lead, relaxing as well. She can feel him resting his chin on her head, and Sam pats his leg.

“Good boy,” she manages through the lump in her throat.

He grunts in response, and for a moment, Sam thinks the crisis is averted, when she hears another small clatter—

Without thinking, she twists in his lap, looking up at his bloody face, and she cringes for a moment, but steels herself. She licks her hand and gently begins cleaning the dried blood off of his face like he did so long ago for her. Sam doesn’t have the guts to lick his face—she doesn’t really wanna puke, thank you very much—and Josh looks at her, his eyes the last speck of humanity he can claim, and she titters at him to cover the wash of emotions.

“Stop getting so messy when you’re eating. You look like a slaughterhouse,” she informs him as she attempts to clean his face. Josh looks taken aback, eyes wide, and she determinedly continues her mission. It takes more spit than Sam bargained for, as her first attempts only made the blood smears worse. However, he sits and allows her to diligently clean his face, and at one point, he even closes his eyes.

Sam tries to focus on the rotting wooden archway that supports their small cave, or the stalagmites on the ceiling, anything to keep her face from burning even hotter. She can’t believe she’s doing this—her life is a mess of tragedy and small moments of weird humor. Here she is, cleaning the dried blood off of her friend-turned-Wendigo, and he’s letting her. Even if she’s using it as a distraction for Mike to escape without notice.

As she continues to clean his face, Sam slowly becomes aware of the small rumbling noise emanating from his chest— _is he purring?_

 _Holy shit, he is purring_ , she thinks in amazement. _Like some weird, feral cat. Who eats people_.

Sam tries to ignore the taste of the blood in her mouth as she licks her thumb and moves to clean the area around his eyes, and he presses his face into her hand with a small sigh.

She tries to think about anything except the present, because of the guilt twisting her stomach—she’s only doing this to distract him from Mike, who will presumably save her and kill him. Maybe she can talk him out of it, but more than likely he’ll burst in here, flamethrower blazing.

_Mike, why do you have to be a big goddamn hero?_

Sam already knows the answer to that, like she knows the answer to why Hannah always had to put on her left shoe before her right shoe, and why Josh always quoted movies—it’s in Mike’s nature, part of his personality, part of _him_. He wouldn’t be Mike if he didn’t want to save the day, slay the dragon, and rescue the princess.

But what Mike doesn’t know is that it isn’t necessary—she doesn’t need a savior, she needs a friend, and sometimes, Josh is— _was_ , she corrects herself—the only one who could understand that.

***************************

They say time slows down in an accident, but Sam disagrees—it happens in a flash, before she can even comprehend it. One minute, she’s talking to her mom about colleges she wants to apply to, and the next, she’s slamming against the car door, inertia too strong to resist. All she can feel is pain, and she blindly reaches for her mom, needing to be reassured. _Mom, where are you?_

There are paramedics surrounding her, and she’s babbling, asking for her mom, and none of them will say anything except _We’re taking you to the hospital, everything will be okay_.

She doesn’t wipe away the blood that’s trickling down into her eyes, she only clutches her shoulder—it hurts, and it won’t stop, but the paramedics usher her into the ambulance, and she complies numbly. The sirens wail around her, and she stares at her mom on the stretcher, unnaturally still, face already bruising. She brushes the hair from her mom’s face with a gentle hand, and the paramedic directs her to sit on the bench as they place an oxygen mask over her mom’s face.

Her mom is in surgery, the doctors tell her. They need to release the pressure in her brain. She hit her head on the window because of whiplash, and her brain hit the inside of her skull—Sam just sits quietly in the ICU. They stitch up the cut on her head, give her a sling for her torn rotator cuff, and tell her to go home and get some sleep.

 _I don’t have a car_ , she wants to tell them, _and dad’s out of town, he can’t get back until tomorrow_ , and the hospital chairs are too uncomfortable to sleep on in her sling, so she sits, staring blankly at the impressionist painting that’s designed to be calming on the wall across from her.

The next time the doctor walks towards her, she stands up to meet him, praying for _good news, good news_ —

“She needs to be put into a medically induced coma to reduce the swelling in her brain. You can’t see her yet, but tomorrow morning you’ll be able to visit with her.”

The floor falls out beneath her, and she blinks back hot tears. She wants to protest, to shake him by the lapels of his white coat and scream at him. Comas are for people that have no hope. People who waste away in hospital beds, not her mother—but the doctor pats her good shoulder awkwardly. “Go home, get some sleep,” he advises her. “She’ll be here in the morning.”

Her hands fumble with her phone, scrolling aimlessly through her contacts—Mike would worry too much, Jess would cry, Em is too abrasive, Hannah and Beth are camping this weekend, and Josh—

She’s tapping on his name before she can process it, and he picks up on the third ring.

“Sammy, what’s up?” His voice is cheerful, and she can hear Chris yelling about unrealistic movie explosions in the background.

“Can you—” her voice cracks, and she swallows, and tries again— “Can you pick me up? I’m at the hospital, I’m fine, I just—I just need a ride. I don’t have money for a cab.”

“Which hospital?” Josh’s voice is all business now, and she can appreciate that he doesn’t ask _why_ or _how_ or _when_.

Sam rattles off the name of the hospital, and lets him know she’s in the ICU waiting room, and hangs up. She’s no longer capable of feeling anything but how _exhausted_ she is, and she sits in the plastic chair and leans her head against the wall. She appreciates the fact that he’s coming for her without any questions or hesitation, just because she asks, and the knots in her heart loosen. It may seem like everything’s falling apart, but at least she has people she can count on, at least she has him.

She must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing she knows Josh is gently shaking her shoulder, and she jolts awake.

“Sammy?”

Everything rushes back to her now: the accident, her mom, the pain, and she can’t help but throw herself in his arms, tears streaming down her face.

“Woah, everything’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” he soothes, which only makes her cry harder. How can everything be okay, when her mom’s in a coma and everything’s wrong, but he hugs her tighter, and strokes her hair as she lets it all out.

“I’m sorry, it’s just... been a long day,” she explains when her waterworks had finally slowed down.

“Apparently,” is all he says, and again she’s struck by how much she appreciates him not prying, letting her talk at her own pace, excising her wounds one at a time.

“We, I mean, my mom and I were driving back home from the grocery store, when this guy ran a red light, and he... t-boned us. My mom hit her head, and now she’s in a medically induced coma, and my dad’s out of town, and I lost my wallet in the car, so I would’ve called a cab but I had no money, and I’m sorry, and thank you,” Sam says honestly. She hadn’t meant to babble everything out, but she’s tired and he’s _here, with her_.

“Sam, everything’s going to be okay. It may not seem like it now, but trust me.” Josh gives her a crooked grin, and she wipes her nose.

“I know, I’m just tired and in pain. Can you take me home now?”

“Sammy, please, I don’t go home with girls on the first date. We need to go out _at least_ three times before we reach that level.”

Sam rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean, Washington. I want to take these pain pills and sleep for a while.”

Josh pauses for a moment, brow creased in thought, and Sam waits. He’s obviously gearing up to say something, but—

“Do you want to stay over at our house?” Josh offers quickly, the tips of his ears slightly pink, and he coughs. “I mean, that way you’re not alone, and pain pills can be tough, and it’ll be hard to make food with one hand—”

“Yes, Josh, I’d like that.” She cuts him off before he can babble for too long. “And Josh? Would you... like to come with me to visit my mom tomorrow?” Sam adds, and then immediately regrets it. Josh probably hates hospitals after his parents put him in one last year. It’s probably hard enough for him to come pick her up, and _fuck, she’s insensitive—_

“I’d love to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I owe everything to my beautiful beta [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas) and all of you wonderful people, inspiring me with your awesome and kind comments!
> 
> This is the last daily chapter, just because I've got three midterms to study for. I'll probably post the next chapter on Friday or Saturday, depending on how much I get done tonight/tomorrow.
> 
> Wanna be miserable with me about Until Dawn? Follow me at [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/).
> 
> And as always, please R&R, it means a lot to me!


	6. You wanna help me get this fire going?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (◡‿◡✿)

Sam dozes in Josh’s lap, the quick pulse of his heart thrumming against her back. Mike will have to wait until closer to dawn before venturing into the cave. She can get some sleep and maybe intercept him before he makes his way down here. She needs time to explain—Mike’s reasonable, if a bit curious, and hopefully those traits will work in her favor.

As she waits for Josh to fall asleep, she idly traces the outline of the wooden beams that hold up the cave’s roof. Water drips from the rotted wood in a comforting rhythm, and Sam is acutely aware of his breaths near her ear. She tries to pinpoint when she started thinking about this cave as _their cave_ , like a shared possession or joint bank account, and when the relentless need to escape began to subside.

Josh’s breathing begins to even out in sleep, and she crawls out of his lap and stretches out her back, pitching arguments to herself that she can use against Mike.

 _He hasn’t eaten me yet_ is the first that comes to mind, but Mike will shoot that down with a _but he has eaten someone, Sam, who’s to say you’re not next?_

 _His eyes are still human_ is too abstract for Mike. He’ll dismiss her as being _a romantic and an optimist, Kamkin, and also a fool_.

 _He saved me from the other Wendigo_ could work. If a Wendigo doesn’t still have some humanity in it, why would Josh save her? _He’s territorial, he just wants to eat you himself._

_Goddammit, Mike, why do you have to be so persuasive?_

Even in her mind Mike counters all her arguments, though she knows that deep down, Josh can still be saved. Maybe she can’t put it into words, maybe she’s not as _pragmatic_ as Mike is, but she gave up on Hannah and Beth, and she can’t—she won’t do the same to Josh, not when she knows that her best friend is in there. Even as a monster, Josh can’t hurt her, and if she’s supposed to be the human— _the moral one, the good one_ —how can she abandon him in this hellish place where his sisters died?

She’s at the edge of the cave, no arguments to offer to Mike except hope, when she hears quiet footsteps approaching from one of the mining tunnel offshoots. A small light begins to cast its glow on the rocks of the mine, and hope and fear begin to bubble within her. _But will I be able to convince him?_

Mike rounds a corner and comes into view, and she can’t help it—she’s crying again, overtaken by relief and hope in equal measure.

“Sam!” Mike calls quietly, and she walks towards him, wringing her hands.

“God, Mike, I just... _thank you_ ,” is all she can manage before hugging him tightly. “I was afraid no one would come.” The truth comes out before she can stop it. She was so afraid of being left to die in the mine like Hannah and Beth were. The crushing, paralyzing fear of being alone, dying alone, with nobody the wiser.

“Fuck, Sam. If we knew you were alive, we would never have left,” he whispers furiously, lifting her up in his embrace. She can feel the wetness on her cheeks, and he must be crying too because his voice is nearly wrecked with emotion. She’s touched that he cares, even now, after all that happened the past year and the toll it took on their friendship.

They stay like that for a moment, then she steps back, taking a deep breath as she readies herself to launch into her speech. Every argument she had come up with withers in her mind, but she leaps in anyway, determined to make it up as she goes along if she has to. Knees trembling and heart fluttering, she begins, “Listen, Mike—”

“Where’s Josh?” he interrupts her, gaze serious and his right hand clamped on the triggering mechanism of the flamethrower she only now notices is strapped over his back.

“No, Mike. It’s not like that, you can’t kill him!” Sam argues, hands on her hips. His stubbornness grates on her, _he’s supposed to listen to what she has to say_ —

“What’s it _not like_ , Sam? He’s a fucking _Wendigo_. It’s a miracle he hasn’t killed you yet. I don’t intend to wait to put him down until he has the chance.” Mike pauses, then says, gentler, like she’s delicate and fragile and breakable, “You don’t have to watch me do it. Just get out of here. I’ll take care of it.” He puts his hand on her shoulder, but she pushes it off.

“You’re not _listening_ to me, Mike. He’s still partly human. I think he can be cured!” Sam doesn’t realize that her voice has steadily risen until she hears Josh’s half-human scream from somewhere down one of the tunnel offshoots, and close. Water drips from the ceiling as everything goes to hell.

“Fuck!” Mike curses. He shoves her out of the way as he fumbles with the flamethrower, but Josh is already there, mouth twisting grotesquely as he screams again and leaps for Mike. She’s never seen Josh like this, terrifying like the Wendigo he’s becoming, like the Wendigo he is already. Sam wonders if she’s been deluding herself this whole time, but she dismisses the thought. He built her a fucking _nest_ , for christ’s sake.

“Mike, don’t fucking use that flamethrower. I swear to god!” Sam yells as Mike tumbles over the ground with Josh. She sees the exact moment that Josh’s claws catch on Mike’s shoulder, forcing a shout of pain from him, and Sam is stuck frozen— _what do I do, what do I do_ —but then Mike’s kicking Josh off of him, grabbing the flamethrower and taking aim. Narrowly, Josh rolls out of the way and leaps again, just missing the spurt of flames. The sudden light burns Sam’s eyes, and she instinctively shades her face.

“Fuck, Mike, stop!” Sam screams at him, and her mind can’t quite kickstart into action, but Josh has Mike by the throat now, Mike’s stump fingers uselessly scrabbling at Josh’s claws, and _fuck what should she do—_

“Mike, I swear to god, you fucking dumbass, get out of here!” Sam yells, and she’s off like a shot, hoping and praying that this works. “I’ll meet you at the lodge!” she calls back to him. She’s sprinting through the mines, and she can’t hear anything over her own panting breath, and then—

She hears Josh’s cry behind her—he abandoned Mike in favor of following her, but she’s got to give him a good chase for Mike to get a chance to escape, and she turns left, hurdling over a pile of wood.

 _Just think of this like a Steeplechase race,_ she tells herself as she clears a knocked-over barrel. She can hear Josh’s screams gaining on her, and she hopes this isn’t the point in his transformation when he tries to eat anything that moves. _That would be a great way to end the day, especially when I just told Mike that he’s still human._

Her breathing is labored, but she keeps sprinting through the dimly lit mines, her newly healing leg protesting the abuse, but she has to keep running. Some of the oil drums the old man Wendigo hunter had set up are still lit, providing her with minimal light to see the obstacles in front of her. She’s hurdling over a break in a wobbly bridge, and sticks the landing. _A slightly more deadly Steeplechase race_ , she amends in her own mind. The air in the mine is cold and each breath she sucks in stabs at her lungs. Sam continues on, Josh gaining on her with every step.

Sam leaps again, but doesn’t see the puddle of oil when she lands, skidding and tripping. She falls, rolling a few times because of her momentum, and coughs when she finally stops. She’s dizzy, blinking in the hazy light, and cold rocks press uncomfortably against her back.

Josh enters her field of vision and leans over her, sniffing at her briefly before licking her face. His saliva is mixed with blood, and she cringes. _I guess he wants to know if I’m okay_ , she tells herself, and her heart twinges, but she covers it up by blustering at him.

“Gross. Really, really gross.” Sam complains, but Josh responds by throwing her over his shoulder and loping back the way she ran. If she thought he treated her gracelessly the last time she tried to escape, this time is worse—or maybe she’s just sore from her impromptu Steeplechase. Every time she bumps against him her ribs ache.

She hopes Mike’s okay and that he’s not too mad. She hopes he’s waiting at the lodge for her like she told him, hopes she can even _make it_ to the lodge. The idea of the lodge seems like an oasis at the moment—imaginary and unattainable.

Josh sits her down in the nest, eyebrows furrowed, and he moves away to pace the entrance of the cave irritably, claws flexing and teeth snapping occasionally. Sam watches him pace, lost in her own thoughts. It’s clear to her—she has to leave. Mike won’t give up now that he knows she’s here, and he’ll only bring back more firepower if she waits here like a sitting duck. For Josh’s sake, she has to leave or he’ll be killed.

“I have to,” she whispers aloud to convince herself, and Josh glances at her for a fraction of a second before resuming his angsty pacing. The width of the cave entrance isn’t a good pacing length, and each time he changes direction his motions become more frantic. It isn’t helping her unease, her guilt, not when she knows he can sense them and she’s probably making it worse. “I have to,” she repeats.

The words echo emptily in her ears, and they taste sour in her mouth. Sam’s doing it for his own good—he’ll die if she stays. He’ll die, and it’ll be her fault, and she can’t live with any more guilt.

Standing up with a sigh, Sam only manages to take one step towards Josh before he’s leaping next to her in a flash, pushing her back down with a mild grumble. She latches onto his wrist and pulls him down as well, arranging herself in the nest before tugging on his arm again. Josh lies down on her gently, heaving out a sigh of presumed contentment. Guilt claws at her heart, weighing her down and drowning her in her own doubt, but she still rubs his arm until he falls asleep.

Though he never sleeps for long, when he does it’s heavy and deep, and she slips out from under him.

 _Traitor_ , her mind whispers, but the image of him being consumed by flames lingers too strongly in her mind.

Unlike her last escape attempt, she takes her time, each step planned and quiet. She lets the dripping and creaking of the mines keep her company, and though each step away from the cave twists her heart, she holds the image of Josh being killed in her mind, and it pushes her forward. The lights left in the mine flicker, bathing her in a yellow light. At one point she has to stop, the weight of it all crushing her down, her throat tightening, and she clutches at one of the wooden support beams as she breathes through the anxiety attack. _All your fault, all your fault_ , she chants to herself as she climbs up the rock face, the biting cold wind of pre-dawn intent on punishing her as well.

It’s colder outside than she remembers.

The wind bites at her, and she feels underdressed in her running pants and a thin thermal jacket. Each snowflake that hits her face feels like tiny needle-pricks against her skin.

 _Fuck, it’s cold_.

Sam’s shaking from the chilly air as she trudges in what she thinks is the direction of the lodge, the white of the snow blinding against her sensitive eyes.

She hopes she’s making the right decision. Leave or stay, there is no third option, no easy way out. Only one leads to saving Josh’s life, and she’s taking it. Sam tries to imagine what he would’ve said to her if he could speak. Would he be mad that she stayed for so long, risking her life? Would he have asked her to stay with him despite the consequences?

 _If Josh could speak then we wouldn’t be in this situation_ , she reminds herself, wrapping her arms around herself.

She wonders when the sun will rise, and if it will hurt her eyes after being in the dark of the mines for so long. She wonders if she deserves it.

Sam stops, even though she knows she’s getting close to the lodge, internally warring with herself. She already lost Hannah and Beth—she gave up on them, how can she do that to Josh? Especially when he’s been there for her through thick and thin? She was the one failing him, lately. If she had been there for him, supported him, would he have even gone through with this stupid prank?

She can’t leave him. She can’t leave him, _won’t leave him_ , hates herself for trying, taking the easy way out and abandoning him when he truly needs her. Just like she wasn’t there for him when he needed her before the trip, she isn’t here for him now, and she hates herself for it.

Those thoughts continue to plague her, when suddenly—her mental self-flagellation is interrupted by an inhuman scream, and she feels her heart plummet in her chest.

It’s not Josh.

She finds herself sprinting for the second time that night. Sam knows if she’s caught she’ll be dead. It’s harder to see obstacles in the blinding snow, but she’s doing okay, stumbling occasionally but never falling.

It isn’t enough—full Wendigos can move so much faster than Josh can, and it’s closer now, and suddenly she’s sliding down a rocky hill. Without thought, she throws her arm up to catch hold of any rock that might slow her tumble when _there_ , her fingers find purchase.

But then inertia is catching up to her. Her shoulder _wrenches_ , and Sam drops down, her cries muted by the howling wind.

She hits the ground with another cry, her shoulder on fire despite the freezing temperatures around her. Limbs stiff, she struggles to sit up, but the ice grips her, bone deep, and her shoulder screams. She gives up, lying dazed and prone on the ground. The Wendigo has stopped screeching; it’s lost her now that she’s unmoving. Trading one death for another.

 _What a way to go_ , she thinks hazily, giddy in her shock.

Briefly, Sam wonders if she hit her head. She wonders if it even matters, because hypothermia will take her before any kind of head injury, and she wonders if her shoulder will ever stop screaming at her. _Probably not. I’ll be in pain until the last moment, and Mike will think Josh ate me, and then we’ll both be dead. Way to fuck things up, Kamkin._

Sam can’t tell if she’s sleeping or wide awake as she waits for the cold to finally overtake her. Maybe she’s daydreaming, maybe she’s dying— _what’s the difference anyway?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Follow me [here](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/), and thanks to my beta [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas) again for inspiration and generally being wonderful and lovely.


	7. Dawn, at the earliest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right in the honey-nut _feelios._
> 
> Listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLagQYbFMos) for maximum feelings.

Everything feels dead without the twins, somehow. She never thought about tragedies happening to her. This kind of thing happens to other people, not her, and she selfishly wishes that someone else could carry this burden.

She can’t talk to Em or Jess or Ashley, because she can only see the cruel smiles that twist their mouths as they jump out at Hannah from the closet and under the bed, but she can’t hate them. They all just float apart, in pain and mourning. Grief is a lonely thing, not something that can be articulated or shared.

Sam’s tossing in a nightmare and wakes with a piercing scream as Hannah’s torn from her hands, and her hand is still outstretched even when her screams quiet. She’s sure if her parents were here, they’d be running to her room, but she insisted they take their anniversary trip, more than deserving of the break from their broken-down daughter. They sympathize, but they weren’t there. They couldn’t share her grief, so she shoulders the burden alone.

She’s still awake when Josh calls her at 3:17 a.m., and she answers on the first ring.

“Can I come over?” he asks hoarsely over the phone. She quietly says yes, and he hangs up with an _I’ll be there in twenty._

She doesn’t bother to clean up, but throws a sports bra on so she’s at least not bra-less underneath her huge t-shirt, and the tightness on her chest grounds her.

Going to the kitchen, she pulls out a mug and a tea bag, setting the kettle to boil. Sam doesn’t even want tea, she just wants to keep her hands busy and have the comforting warmth of a mug in her hands, and she’s just stirring in honey when there’s a knock on her door.

He lets himself in before she can get over to the door, and the only greeting he offers is, “You need to lock your door.”

“I know,” she answers, and she pulls him out a glass to pour some orange juice in. She knows he loves orange juice, will drink it for any occasion, and he accepts the glass without question or comment.

Sam settles herself on the couch, tucking her feet underneath her, and he sits next to her, sliding his shoes off. There are bags under his eyes and he looks pale and sickly. Still, she says nothing.

The only noise is him sipping his orange juice and her blowing on her boiling hot tea, and they sit in silence. She waits patiently for him to talk, because he needs this, and he reached out to her, and goddamn it she will shoulder some of his burden if she can.

“Mom thinks that never talking about them is the best way to move forward,” Josh says abruptly, leaning forward to set his glass on the table. He rests his face in his hands, and she stares out the window, moonlight peeking through the clouds. “And every time I bring them up, she just looks so upset. Sometimes I think she blames me for not being there, for being a useless, passed-out drunk,” he continues bitterly.

Gently, Sam sets down her half-empty teacup and puts a hand on his back. She leaves it there, and when he doesn’t shake it off, she begins rubbing circles on his back like her own mother did for her when she was sick or scared.

“And then, no one else wants to bring them up, or even talk to me, like they’re afraid I’m going to break if they even say their names. And it’s so hard for everyone to just pretend like it never happened, and it’s like no one else is grieving but me, and it’s just so hard,” Josh finishes with a whisper.

They sit in silence, and Josh eventually takes his head out of his hands with a sigh.

“Sometimes, I think…,” she begins slowly, eyes trained on the asphalt outside. “Sometimes, I think that we don’t know how to carry our grief. It’s a private thing, and we just don’t want other people to know that we’re suffering, or we don’t want to burden others, so we wrap it up tight inside of us. And sometimes, that makes it even more lonely, because everyone thinks that no one else is grieving or struggling, and that they’re the only person who’s sad.”

Taking a deep breath, she continues, and Sam feels Josh’s eyes on her, but she can’t look at him yet or she’ll cry again, “And that’s the worst, because when we bury it, it just gets worse and worse until we explode. You have to release the pressure, or it finds a worse way to come out. And I think your mom blames herself for letting a bunch of teenagers party at a lodge by themselves, and I think everyone else is trying to let you have space but isn’t sure how to do that. It’s easy to be like ‘oh, you can come talk to me’ and be sincere about it, but it’s harder to follow through on that, because everyone wants to pretend they’re fine, and we all just end up wearing these masks.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, if we talk about it we can get better. Together,” Sam finishes, and she feels tears welling up, so she hastily wipes them away with the hand she isn’t rubbing Josh’s back with. She’ll be strong for him now, when he was her pillar so many times before, even when he was also hurting inside.

Josh stares at her now, and she hopes she hasn’t overstepped boundaries, but she keeps imagining Hannah’s hands reaching out to her in dreams, slipping through her fingers. Sam knows that if she’s struggling to make it through each day, Josh must be feeling worse. He lost his only sisters on the same day, wrenched away by misfortune and a cruel prank. She still can’t meet his eyes, because she’ll break down when she needs to be her strongest.

“It just hurts so much sometimes. I think I’m dying or I’m going insane, and I just don’t know how to say it because none of it makes sense,” Josh says, voice cracking.

Sam pulls him close to her now, and when he buries his face against her neck, she wraps her arms around him.

“You don’t have to say anything you’re not ready to say, or can’t say,” she whispers fiercely. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we’ll get through this together.”

Josh doesn’t say anything, but he’s trembling, and he holds her like it’s the only thing keeping him together.

“Josh, you’re the strongest person I know, but you don’t have to be alone,” she murmurs, and he breaks down, weeping against her. She tries to wrap herself around him like she can make him feel loved and worthy by sheer force of willpower. He clings to her, her shirt becoming damp with his tears, but she just continues to hold him, stroking his hair and saying nothing. Words hold tremendous power, it’s true—but sometimes silence speaks more.

Sam wonders if this is the first time he’s truly allowed himself to break down since Hannah and Beth went missing, and she hates herself for not reaching out earlier, but she’s glad he came to her, glad she isn’t alone tonight, glad he’s letting her in, piece by piece. If only she can repay him for all the things he’s done for her, Sam will be a pillar for him, hold him up when he falters, and shield him from the loneliness.

His cries are quieter now, and he lifts his head from her shoulder, eyes swollen.

Sam disentangles herself from him to get him a glass of water and a tissue box, and when she sets them in front of him, he lets out a broken laugh that sounds more like a sob than anything else. It pierces her heart—when was the last time he laughed? When was the last time _she_ laughed? Does she even deserve to laugh, when she failed Hannah and Beth in such a tremendous way? Josh interrupts her train of thought, and she’s grateful.

“Thanks, Sammy.”

She pats his knee. “I’m here for you. You don’t have to do this alone, I’m here to support you.”

“You sure know how to treat a broken man, Sammy.”

“No,” Sam says sharply, her voice cutting through the stillness. “You’re not broken, Josh. You don’t need to be fixed. Everyone needs help. Everyone needs support.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but when he speaks again, his voice is serious. “Sam, you don’t have to do it alone, either. I want you to know that. You’re allowed to ask for help, too.”

“Thanks, Josh.”

***************************

Keening cries interrupt her sleep, but she’s _so tired_ , can’t this person see? She wants to sleep and never wake up, because in sleep she can be warm, in sleep she can be happy.

“Let me sleep,” Sam mumbles through numb lips, blinking blearily.

Josh’s face swims in her vision, teeth grotesque and eyes crusty. She blinks again. Josh is making more high pitched whining noises, she’s being lifted. Suddenly her arm is on fire again, and she cries out.

Josh only cradles her tighter. She can feel the wind pushing against them and the snow soaking into her clothes.

Sam’s teeth chatter, when a familiar sight enters her vision—the lodge stands strong amidst the wind, and he’s taking her into the side basement entrance, the door shutting with a _clang_. It’s the door that truly wakes her up—Josh saved her, he saved her _again_ and _all she’s been is a burden._

It’s empty without the wind howling in her ears. Josh sets her down gently, and suddenly he’s dragging piles of fabric out of a closet and wrapping them gently around her, but she’s still trembling. Her clothes are soaked and the need to be dry spurs her into action. Stripping awkwardly with numb limbs and an aching shoulder, she sheds her damp clothes, any need for modesty paling compared to her need to not lose any limbs to frostbite.

She realizes that he’s trying to wrap her in clothing from one of the costume piles that dots the basement, and she recognizes the monk robe that Chris had used to scare her on that fateful night. Sam grabs it and pulls it over herself, the fabric scratchy but warm, and sits back down in Josh’s makeshift costume-nest.

He keeps piling fabrics around her, then he curls around her atop the nest. Sam can finally feel her nose again, and she fights the urge to drowse, because she needs to tell him something. She fights to remember _what_ she needs to tell him in her scrambled and cold mind—

Sam suddenly remembers what she’d dreamed of the first time Josh came to her after they lost Hannah and Beth. Though both of them were consumed with their own sorrow, she was able to begin sharing the burden. It was the beginning of late night phone calls and long drives out of the city, driving down the highway to nowhere.

She knows what she needs to say. She should’ve said it ages ago, when he told her she could rely on him. She had spurned him then, guilt driving her to help him but deny herself the same. Because of that he eventually closed himself off from her, unwilling to work through the burden if she kept building walls. Their relationship has been a goddamn circle, Sam opening up and closing again, Josh coming to her and pushing her away.

“Josh,” she says hoarsely, and he cracks one eye open. Sam shakes him; she needs his full attention, even if he can’t understand her, and he reluctantly sits up, grumbling at her.

“Josh, I kept trying to save you all by myself, be the big goddamn hero by leaving you in the caves, but _god, I need you_.” Sam’s crying now, messy tears and splotchy face, but she continues, “Fuck, I can’t do it alone, and you told me to ask for help, so here I am—begging, on my knees. _Josh, I need you._ I need you to get better, I need you to hold onto that humanity that drives you to save me, that drives you to care for me—fuck, Josh, you’ve always been the strong one—I need you to _leave the Wendigo behind_.”

He looks at her, with those green eyes that seem so human, and watches her hiccup and sob. Josh leans forward, pressing the side of his face against hers, and hums.

Sam eventually falls asleep after she stops crying, and she wonders how she could have any more tears left inside her after the amount that she’s cried recently.

She dreams of burning lodges and loud shotguns, blood and guts, and she awakens with a scream. Josh is up in a moment, cradling her face in clawed hands as she hiccups with tears that refuse to fall. She laughs; she really is out of tears, even if her body doesn’t recognize it. Sam covers Josh’s claws with her own hands.

“Josh, I’ll do better this time. I promise,” Sam swears. He tilts his head, and she swears she can see the human emotion brimming in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was the last flashback, guys! I'm so sad, I loved writing them. On the bright side, I've roughly written all the chapters except for the epilogue, so I updated how many chapters this fic is. I had no idea I would write so much for it, but I'm thrilled. All your comments on ao3 and your tumblr messages just mean so much to me!
> 
> I owe it all to [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas) for being my main inspiration and incredible beta, I couldn't ask for a better roommate/soul sister! Even if we like to torture each other with really sad songs.
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) to be miserable with me.


	8. Well brother, you've outdone us all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> click [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8o65k0RlXc) for music!

Though Sam’s shoulder hurts like a bitch, she endures it without complaint. It somehow feels right to be back in the lodge, and she’s itching to explore, though the silence indicates that Mike either left or never made it back. She pushes those thoughts away, unwilling to contemplate Mike not making it out of the mines. _He’s strong, he’s survived this much already_ , she tells herself, and she thinks if she repeats it enough it’ll become true.

Unfortunately, every time she stands up, Josh just curls more tightly around her, grumbling unhappily. Sam gives up, allowing herself to doze against him, feeling better than she has in days. _Never let it be said that near death experiences aren’t good for something._ The grief and guilt will never go away, but she still feels like she’s excised something, and that’s enough for now.

Eventually, hunger drives her out of her musty nest, the prospect of real food too enticing. Sam prods Josh enough that he finally stands up with her, and maybe it’s a trick of the light, but his eyes look clearer and more alert.

She’s halfway up the stairs when he hisses, covering his eyes, and Sam realizes that it’s past dawn, and the sun shines hazily through the windows on the first level. He clutches at her wrist, grip almost painfully tight, and she sighs.

“I need food, Josh, and so do you. Even though past evidence may speak to the contrary, I won’t run away again. Pinky promise.”

Josh growls, but he eventually releases her hand, and she crosses the threshold onto the first floor.

She forgot how bright sunlight is, and she squints as she fumbles her way towards the kitchen. The glass on the front door is broken, and pieces of furniture lay in disarray, but the lodge is otherwise intact.

Dust motes swirl in the air, and the furniture is still covered in white sheets. It feels ghostly. Too many bad memories haunt this place, enough to overpower the good ones, and she thinks she’ll be glad when she can bid this place goodbye.

On the table she finds a note, unaddressed but held in place by a radio. _If you make it, just call._ Sam releases a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, the knowledge of Mike’s survival giving her immeasurable relief.

She finds an unopened box of cereal in the cupboard and tears into it greedily, barely pausing to even chew on the fruit loops before swallowing. She knows she’s spilling some on the floor in her hunger, but she tells herself she’ll clean it up later. She can’t be blamed for the mess she makes, now that she has something besides raw meat to eat.

Once she’s feeling less ravenous, she digs into the fridge and locates some packaged lunch meat that Josh might like. As she prepares to bring the spoils from her scavenge back downstairs, a framed picture catches her eyes. It’s her and Hannah and Beth, hugging and throwing up peace signs their freshman year. They all look so young and naive, and to think, she thought she was a mature adult when she was that age.

On an impulse, she grabs it and clambers down the stairs, juggling cereal and pictures and lunch meat.

Once Josh sees her, he’s up in a flash, hovering over her like a concerned mother hen. _A hendigo?_ she thinks, but shakes her head. _Obviously, near-death experiences have impacted my taste in jokes_.

Hiding the picture beneath the box of cereal, she opens the tupperware and the pre-sealed plastic baggy, handing the lunch meat to Josh carefully. He’s eating it faster than she can hand it to him, and she tuts.

“Please, Josh, have some manners,” she scolds him as she tosses him another piece of lunchmeat, and he catches it in his mouth with all the dexterity of a deranged poodle.

Once she empties two containers of lunch meat into his gaping maw, she slides the picture out from under the box of cereal, heart in her throat.

His eyes are trained on the picture, his brows furrowed like he’s trying to place the photo, like he’s trying to _remember_.

“Do you remember when I first met you? God, every time Hannah and Beth wanted to tease me they brought it up. I was so in awe of your stupid rich-person house that I thought your room was her room, and when I was getting dressed, you showed up dripping wet in your stupid towel, and we just stared at each other like we were mute. And after I ran downstairs, Hannah thought it was the funniest thing in the world and literally wouldn’t stop laughing for, like, ten minutes.”

Josh’s eyes are still trained on the photo, so she continues, “Hannah had this stupidly contagious laugh, and Beth would always make fun of her for it, but Beth snorted when she laughed too hard, so I think she was just jealous. Whenever Hannah brought up our half-naked meeting, I always threatened her with the time she was trying to take a picture of this hot guy at the movie theater and her volume was up and her flash went off, so he looked super confused and she hid behind a plant. She’d always blush super hard at that, and then Beth would start snorting and laughing, which made Hannah bring up that time that Beth tripped on the first day of highschool and fell on this guy and landed face-first into his crotch.”

Sam’s babbling now, but Josh is listening to her with rapt attention, like he can understand her. Talking about the twins is tiring, grief warring with humor as she recalls some of their funniest stories, and she has to stop, voice beginning to choke up.

“Sorry, Josh, that’s all for now. I’ll find some other pictures and some new stories to tell you later,” Sam tells him, and he cocks his head at her, but this time it’s less animalistic and more curious. It fills her with such a painful hope that she could burst with it.

“First, you’re going to need a shower. So do I. I feel disgusting. And I really, really want to get out of this monk robe.”

*****

When the sun sets, Sam carefully leads Josh up the basement stairs. He’s fidgety, and nervous, and refuses to cross the threshold.

No cajoling, begging, or pleading will make him cross it, and the stubborn set of his jaw convinces Sam to give up.

“Fine!” Sam exclaims, throwing her hands into the air. “Fine, whatever. I’m going to shower.”

Climbing up the stairs, she tries to ignore all the extinguished candles and floating balloons left over from Josh’s prank, how it causes her heart to quicken and her breaths to come in short, uneven bursts. _Focus, Sam, focus. There’s no fake psycho, no cameras watching, you’re fine._

Stepping into the bathroom, she drops to her knees, memories hitting her like a punch to the gut. The violation of being watched when you haven’t given your consent—Sam may be here with Josh, trying to help him, but she hasn’t forgiven him for taking away the feeling of security she used to feel here. She breathes through her anxiety, head on her knees as she sits on the threshold of the bathroom for an indeterminate amount of time.

Unsteadily, she rises to her feet and steps into the shower, twisting the water on. She stands under the freezing spray, teeth chattering as she waits for it to warm, and avoids looking at the large bathtub.

Her shoulder aches, and she idly wonders if she aggravated the rotator cuff injury she got in the car accident. _Probably. That’s just my luck_.

Sam is acutely aware of the dirt, grime, and blood she’s covered in. She squeezes out more shampoo than she needs to and scrubs her hair. She’s rough on her scalp, but she keeps scrubbing, scrubbing away every sin of the past few days, of the past year. She rinses her hair then shampoos it again until it’s squeaky clean, and then she massages conditioner through it. Armed with a loofa, she scrubs every inch of her body with soap until it’s red and raw. After she rinses her hair for the last time, she steps out and glances at the towel rack. Memories of running scared, armed only with terry cloth, are too fresh in her mind.

 _Not yet_ , she shivers, and she pulls the monk robe on again, dripping puddles on the floor. She knows her bag is around here somewhere, maybe even someone’s spare clothes.

Shuffling down the upstairs hall, she enters the first room she sees, and the smell of _Josh_ hits her like a ton of bricks. It’s his room, and it’s messy and careless, but it smells like human-Josh—clean, like one of those guy deodorants they call “icy wind” or “fresh scent”. She pulls on a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants from the dresser, tying the drawstring tightly so they don’t slide down her hips. They smell like him, and for a moment she stands there, wrapped in the smell of him.

Sam hesitates a moment, then grabs the crumpled comforter off his bed, wrapping it around her shoulders like a cape. It’s plaid and thick, and it feels good to be finally warm and cozy. Wandering around the second floor, she finds a duffel bag dropped outside of a guest room and rustles through it. It’s Em’s, and Sam only briefly feels bad before ransacking it for underwear and a bra. Thankfully, there’s a sports bra, as Emily’s high-class A-cup bras would do absolutely nothing for her.

She shimmies into bra without taking off her shirt, even though pulling the constricting fabric up makes her shoulder ache with the effort. It’s begun to swell slightly, but that’s a problem for later. Pulling on clean underwear goes much more smoothly than the sports bra did. Sam picks the blanket back up off the floor and wraps it around herself again, leisurely wandering along the hallway, trying to pretend she can’t see the candles lined against the banister and walls.

There are more photos on a side table in the hallway, and she steals them, even if Hannah and Beth’s smiling faces grate at the wound of their loss.

Sam shuffles down the stairs, pictures tucked under one arm, and finds Josh sitting on the edge of the stairs, dozing against the frame of the basement door. He sits up when he hears her thumping down the steps, and she frowns at his appearance. The blood and grime on him are more noticeable now that she’s clean and they’re in the lodge instead of the dark mines.

“You are definitely next on the to-do list, Washington. You _stink.”_

She pauses about five feet from the basement, and he whines at her. Sam debates not bringing it up, but she’s trying to be more open, so she takes a deep breath and—

“Josh, I know why you said you did the prank. So we could all feel the fear that Hannah and Beth felt. And I know you regretted it, once everything played out, _but_ —” her voice cracks on this, and she swallows dryly, “but God, that was the wrong way to confront us about that. And I know you’ve been struggling, but that’s not the way to deal with it. And god, I know that it’s fucking hard to exist some days, but that doesn’t excuse what you ended up doing.” Sam falters for a moment, her voice thick and tired. Swallowing, she pushes her way through the rest of what she needs to say, even if it tastes like ash in her mouth.

“Just now, being up in the bathroom made me wanna curl up and die, I felt so exposed, and when I had to watch you get ripped in half by a _fucking saw_ I felt like I was getting ripped in half, because I couldn’t lose you, not like that, and, and... when I found out you were behind it, I was just so angry and confused because I thought we had a _connection_ , even though I know you hated me never wanting to open up so you stopped opening up, but, but—I’m still _fucking mad._ And... I just needed to say that.” Sam sniffles loudly, punctuating the end of her rant.

Josh is standing on the threshold now, whining quietly, eyes boring into hers. She swipes at her eyes with the edge of the comforter, and continues shuffling towards him.

When she reaches him, he doesn’t move out of the way. Instead, he wraps his arms around her, tucking the top of her head underneath his jaw. Sam freezes, slightly shocked by the turn of events, but wraps the arm that’s not clutching the stack of pictures around him. He’s warm, and it almost reminds her of when he came to pick her up from the hospital, shoulder injured and emotionally drained. In this moment, it’s almost like nothing, and everything, has changed.

“I’m still mad,” she tells him, muffled by the denim of his overalls. “And you still smell really bad. Like a corpse. It’s kinda making me wanna puke up all these fruit loops.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm still working on the epilogue, but I've pretty much written everything, so updates should be pretty regular. Thank you again for all your kind comments, it inspires me to keep doing my best! Please R&R to let me know what you think.
> 
> I owe it all to [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas) for being my main squeeze.
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) to be miserable with me.


	9. He came for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMlou7Q0GRE) for maximum feelings.

Sam explores the basement while Josh sleeps in their nest, even though she feels like she knows it like the back of her hand by now. She avoids the areas where Josh revealed himself as the psycho, the saw blades making her nauseous. She finds more costumes and fashions herself an impromptu sling out of some ripped fabric. Her shoulder will heal with time, she’s not worried, but she’s tired of the constant stabbing pain when she forgets and accidentally stretches it too far. Sam’s tired of being injured, tired of the constant healing-hurting process— _but that’s life_ , she supposes.

She’s hidden the stack of pictures in a box of props, because maybe she’s selfish, but she’s not quite ready to share the memories yet. _Even though she should_ , she tells herself. The memories in that box are some of her most precious, and even though she sees the improvement in Josh, his eyes are the clearest and his mannerisms the most human when she’s re-telling the grand stories of their youth.

Sometimes, he stands up straight, and she’s reminded of how tall he is. Sometimes he’s hunched, claws outstretched like a Wendigo on high alert, irritable and hissy whenever she attempts to leave his line of sight. One step forward, three steps back—or something like that.

A clatter behind her makes her jump, and she spins around, planting her feet in a wide defensive stance. It’s just Josh; he must have knocked a stack of boxes over. He looks appropriately guilty, and it’s just such a _Josh_ expression that she laughs and takes him by the hand. “We’ll clean it up later,” she assures him.

Sam feels hopeful, bolstered by the familiar facial expression, her heart oddly light in her chest. She feels like she might be able to tell him more stories, and she thinks, _there’s no time like the present_. Sam’s never been the kind of girl to wait around, she’s always liked to jump in head-first, so why not now?

Sam leads him back to the nest and paws through the box she hid the pictures in. She pulls out one that’s just Hannah and Beth. Sam had snapped the picture right before they went to their first house party, giddy off of unrealistic expectations and the prospect of breaking the rules.

“God, do you remember how excited Hannah and Beth were about this party? Fuck, they spent the whole week talking about the outfits they were gonna wear and how they were only going to drink a little bit. They practically made a blood pact to not get ‘sloppy drunk,’ even though Beth kinda broke it. You were trying to act super chill and cool about it, but you made about twenty times the amount of sex jokes you normally did, which is how I knew you were really worried about them.”

“And you definitely surprised them when you suddenly declared you were going too, since you almost never went to parties unless Chris was gonna be there. And you said it was because Matt had good liquor, but I knew that it was because you cared about them, and Hannah and Beth did too. They thought it was ‘ _so adorraaaable’_ that you were coming to the party for them, but they never told you. They thought you’d be embarrassed.”

Sam laughs at this, the way the twins had melted when their occasionally abrasive but completely protective older brother had decided to attend the party. Josh is paying rapt attention to her, so she continues the story—her first high school party had been a unforgettable one, and she cherishes her memories of it— _Christ, I sound like a hallmark card._ Sappy feelings or not, she continues the tale.

“Hannah and Beth actually were really relieved you were coming, since everyone is always told horror stories of drugs put in girls’ drinks and alcohol poisoning from jungle juice. And truth be told, I was relieved too... I was kind of scared of my first party, and you being there…. well, it just made the idea of the whole thing _bearable_.” Sam laughs at this, remembering how weirdly comforted she was when he announced that he was going with them. At the time, it felt like a weight had been taken off her chest.

“But suddenly Hannah got this idea in her head that parties were, and I quote, ‘ _an absolutely essential part of any high school experience_ ,’ so she decided none of my clothes were acceptable and made me wear that tiny jersey skirt and that stupid flimsy tank top. Even though it was early November and it was starting to get chilly! ‘ _You make sacrifices for fashion!_ ’ Hannah said, and between the two of them I was fighting a losing battle.”

Sam takes a deep breath, memories threatening to overwhelm her. Josh is still watching her, eyes wide and face attentive, but she reminds herself there’s no need to rush; no impending punishment if she doesn’t finish speaking in time. With that in mind, she consciously tries to slow herself down. _There’s no pressure, do what you can, it’s not a competition_ , she reminds herself, chanting the words like a mantra.

“I remember when we were getting ready in their room—we were dancing badly to _Hot N Cold_ by Katy Perry in our underwear. Then Hannah fell off the bed and it made the loudest crash. You fucking burst into the room all ready to be a hero, but Beth just yelled at you to get out and threw a bra at you. It landed on your head, and it was the funniest shit we’d ever seen. When you fled the room, face red and wearing a lacy pink bra as a hat, we were howling with laughter. And come to think of it, that’s the second time you saw me half naked. I felt bad for you, but it was just too funny. I remember Beth putting on too much fancy Victoria’s Secret perfume, and Hannah and I made fun of her for that.”

“And then at the party, you walked me home after I escaped from that flirty jock, and I made you sleep on the couch cause I didn’t want you walking back that late. And when I texted Hannah and Beth, Beth sent me winky face emojis and Hannah kept sending me the heart eye emojis, and to spite them I didn’t text them back until the next morning. And we made pancakes, and you looked weirdly adorable in my dad’s sweatpants. And I never gave back the sweater you let me borrow; it’s still hanging in my closet. I wear it all the time, because it’s soft and it reminds me of you. Hannah thought it was sweet, Beth thought I was a sap—personally, I thought it was just theft of personal property, but you never asked for it back.”

Sam plays with the gilded edges of the frame, tracing the pattern under her fingertips. She feels like she just sprinted a marathon, heart pounding and chest aching. About halfway through the story, Josh had curled up next to her, head resting on her thigh, and she began stroking his hair with her free hand. It’s greasy under her fingers, and she thinks about how she needs to get him into the bath. The shower would be too difficult to attempt when he’s like this, but the tub still makes her palms sweaty and her heart race, so she thinks it can wait another day. Her sling is digging into her shoulder uncomfortably, and Sam tries to push it out of her mind.

She contemplates her next move. There’s still a stack of pictures hidden in the box, but this story took too much out of her, and she doesn’t think she can speak anymore. Sam wonders if she can get him upstairs. The story might have calmed him enough to cross the threshold.

_It’s worth a shot_.

Shaking his shoulder, she waits for him to blink lazily up at her before she unceremoniously shoves him off her lap and stands. Josh grumbles at her, but stands with her, his back straight. Sam’s reminded how much taller he is than her when he’s not hunched over, and her heart skips a beat. The open wounds at the edges of his fanged mouth have begun to scab over, and his eyes are clear and alert.

She jogs up the basement steps, and after a moment of hesitation, Josh follows.

_It’s now or never_.

Sam steps over the threshold, and turns to face him expectantly. He’s toeing the edge of the threshold, eyes flicking over the room and shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“I don’t know what you’re afraid of, Josh, so I won’t pretend to understand it or lie and say there’s nothing to be afraid of. But I’ll be here, and I’ll hold your hand the whole time. You won’t be alone,” she states, holding her hand out. Her words hang in the air, almost tangible, as she holds her breath.

Finally, Josh places his hand in hers, and she guides him over the threshold. He’s glancing around like he expects something to leap out and attack him, so she takes him step-by-step into the living room. It’s dark and musty, but the moonlight has cast long stripes across the floor.

Sam leads him toward the doorway where rough marks have been hewn into the wood, each with initials carved next to them.

“Here’s where your parents measured you guys. In middle school, you finally grew taller than Hannah and Beth. Beth ended up being one inch taller than Hannah, and proclaimed herself the alpha twin.”

Sam points to a lopsided mark. The initials _S.K._ arecarved next to it. “Hannah invited me to the lodge for winter break freshman year, and this is where I got measured. I was only ever measured once, ‘cause I stopped growing in eighth grade. I barely broke five foot, and you freakishly tall Washington’s like to tease me about it.” She makes a show of grumbling, and Josh lets out a chuffing laugh. Sam freezes, processing, analyzing—

“Josh, did you just... laugh?”

It was broken and hoarse, but it was undeniably a laugh.

He cocks his head at her again, and Sam squeezes his hand. She doesn’t know if she wants to laugh, cry, hug him or hit him. _Fuck, my emotions are all over the place_ , she thinks, _but that’s okay. He laughed._

“I like how that’s what you thought was funny, Joshua,” Sam snips, sarcastic. “It’s not my fault all you guys are so fucking tall! My mom’s 4’9”, so at least I beat her! I even deprived myself of coffee for like two years ‘cause my dad told me caffeine stunted growth. The doctor finally told me I probably just stopped growing. It’s fucking hard to leap over hurdles with short legs, I have to work twice as hard compared to the tall girls on the team!” She can see the humor shining in his eyes as she rants about the trials of being short, but then she finally gets herself back on track with her story.

“But, whatever. Hannah and Beth were always jealous of my legs because of track, so at least there’s that. They wanted me to wear a short dress to prom to show off my legs, but I didn’t want to. Secretly, every girls wants to be a princess at prom, so I insisted on buying a long dress, even if it cost me an arm and a leg.”

“Hannah found it in the back of the store, and Beth originally vetoed it, because she said I would look like I was going to someone’s funeral. It was sleek and black and fitted, and it was the first dress I ever put on that made me feel like a grown-up. I wanted to get straps for it, and then Beth made clucking noises and called me a chicken, but I told her that I didn’t want to flash anyone like she did at the beach one time, the first time she wore a strapless bandeau. She punched me in the arm for that, and I probably deserved it, but Hannah thought it was hilarious.”

Sam remembers how red Beth’s face got and how Hannah couldn’t stop laughing hysterically, and the dressing room attendant came knocking on the door to make sure they were okay. It’s hard to talk about them like this—it’s hard to imagine that they’re gone.

Blinking away the tears, she looks back to Josh. He’s watching her like the world revolves around the tale she spins, even though it’s merely babbling. Sam can see the familial similarities in his face, in the curve of his jaw and the shape of his brow.

Missing the twins is like punch to the gut, but she tries to remember what the grief counselor would always say— _their loss doesn’t invalidate the good years you had together, they wouldn’t want you to grieve for the rest of your life_. She keeps that thought in the forefront of her mind as she continues to talk, and Sam thinks she does a good job of keeping the grief out of her voice.

“And I remember, when I asked Hannah to prom, you were there in the hallway. I got down on one knee and handed her a bouquet of daisies and asked her. You were the one who told me daisies were her favorite flower, and she was so excited. Beth took pictures and posted them on facebook, and Hannah kept the flowers in a vase for two weeks until they all withered. I remember when you were struggling with bad days, and Hannah would make it a point to text you pictures of cute animals and Beth would send you the weirdest, most obscure memes. They were so worried about you, and they were so happy when you decided to go to prom.”

Sam’s leading him through the house, looking for the picture she knows is on a wall somewhere. The dust motes swirls as they stir them up, and Sam can feel Josh watching her, but she keeps her eyes on the walls. Scanning, searching, looking for—

Sam, Hannah, and Beth had genuine smiles on their faces and their arms slung around each other’s shoulders. Josh had made some obscene sex joke and Chris had turned tomato-red, and Mrs. Washington had snapped the picture then, laughter bubbling up.

“Maybe it’s cliche, or maybe it’s because prom really is a pivotal moment in the high school girl’s life, but that night was amazing.” Emotions well up in her throat, and she can’t speak right now, but that’s okay. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and she and Josh stand in front of the photo, hand-in-hand.

_Grief is a funny thing,_ she thinks, _sometimes you’re okay and then sometimes it feels like the world is collapsing around you and no one can see it. You think you’re moving forward when suddenly it’s hard to breathe—_

Josh squeezes her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished the epilogue, but my last few chapters still need editing. I'm kind of emotional, guys, this is my first real multi-chapter fic! Again, thank you for all your encouragement and kind comments. Please R&R, I really appreciate it!
> 
> Thanks to my lovely beta, [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas)!
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) in otp hell.


	10. Boom, butterfly effect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa7bJeOAvp4).

The next day, Sam puts her foot down. Josh has to bathe, and he has to bath _now_. The smell of death and blood follow him around; he’s still dressed in the overalls and button down he was wearing during the prank, and the smell is getting to her. In the caves, where everything was disgusting and grimy, she could ignore it. But here, in the lodge, where he insists on sleeping curled around her in the nest, the smell permeates everything.

“Josh, tonight's the night you’re gonna get clean. Physically, not metaphorically. Whatever that means.”

She thinks he frowns at this, but the amount of teeth in his mouth make it hard to tell, though the edges of them have become blunted. It’s hard to not get her hopes up, but she tries to push them down. _Focus, one thing at a time._

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to come with me to the fucking bathroom. Please,” she tacks on, hoping the attempt at civility might make this difficult job a little easier.

Sam tugs on his wrist sharply, and he digs his feet in. “Fuck, Josh, you need to get clean. You’ll feel better. _I’ll_ feel better. And I’ll tell you more stories. I have plenty of stories, and you like those, don’t you?”

Josh gives in and follows her meekly up the stairs, though he pauses momentarily at the grand stairs that lead to the second story. Sam grabs his hand, squeezes it, and they walk up the steps together.

She didn’t realize how hard it is to do all this in a sling, but she manages—even if she tries not to focus on the tub, or the ringing in her ears and the pounding of her heart. _You’re on a mission, focus on the little things_.

Hot water, cold water, soap, shampoo, towels. Sam finds Hannah’s bubble bath in the cabinets and decides to dump it in the water. It’d be hard to focus if she could see Josh’s junk the entire time; even the thought of it makes her cheeks burn. Bubbles will provide the modesty she so desperately needs, since he probably couldn’t care less.

Josh is standing in the corner by the door, shifting nervously, though he doesn’t try to leave. Sam counts this as an accomplishment and turns toward him.

“Okay. This may be awkward, but I need to get you undressed. It’s going to be hard enough with one hand, so please, _please_ don’t make it harder than it needs to be,” Sam begs.

He cocks his head at her, and she takes that as an agreement.

Buttons are hard. Buttons are really, really hard, and she curses whoever invented them. “Fuck, fuck, whatever,” she grumbles, and she slides the sling off. Her shoulder aches, but she can finally unbutton his overalls, and they fall the floor with a soft _thwump_.

He’s standing in front of her, in his boots and boxers and a button down shirt, and he looks strangely vulnerable. She leans down, untying his work boots, and grabs his hands and leads him forward to step out of them.

Sam makes quick work of his button down, even as the movements aggravate her shoulder. Next comes his undershirt, then his socks, and suddenly Josh is only in his boxers. Her face burning hot, she leads him to the bathtub and keeps her eyes trained on the ceiling as she yanks his boxers down.

 _I hate being in this bathroom, I hate this bathtub, I hate this stupid stubborn Wendigo asshole_ , she chants to herself, focusing on the cracks in the ceiling.

“Get in the tub,” she tells him, but he doesn’t move. Sam gives him a little shove. “Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, _get in the goddamn tub_.”

Josh doesn’t move.

“Fuck,” she mutters, and she grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him harder towards the tub. “Get. In. _Now._ ”

Something must’ve clicked, because he clambers into the sudsy tub and sits down, seemingly content in the hot water. Sam grabs a washcloth and liberally soaps it up, wiping his face, neck, and shoulder gently. Cupping bathwater with her hands, she wets down his hair and shampoos it, working through the snares with her fingers.

When she rinses his hair, he must think it’s a game, because he cups a handful of bubbles and places them on her head.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” she warns him, and his only response is to splash water at her.

Sam really tries to be the mature person as she conditions his hair, but Josh keeps smearing bubbles on her, and she’s rapidly feeling like _she’s_ the one getting the bath, not him. In a valiant effort to not escalate things, she decides to tell a story.

“So, I remember when we were at the restaurant before prom. It was this stupidly classy joint that I had no idea what I was doing inside. There were _five forks_ , Josh, and I was scared. I suddenly felt so out-classed and under-dressed, and I was just about to hide in the bathroom when Hannah pat my arm. She told me that she wouldn’t let her prom date make a fool of herself, and I could use whatever fork I damn well pleased.” Sam starts massaging the conditioner into Josh’s scalp, and he purrs under her ministrations.

“And then, when we got to prom, the first thing we did was kick off our shoes and dance to whatever Ke$ha song was playing, and it was just so much fun, even though I kept tripping on my long dress. When Hannah saw Mike and Em, I pulled her back on the dance floor during the cupid shuffle and made her dance with me, and she just looked so _happy_.” Her voice breaks on the last words, and she begins gently rinsing the conditioner out of his hair. Sam takes a deep breath, pushing any lingering grief aside. She’s on a mission, and even though she can feel old grief beginning to creep back in, flashbacks of the last time she was in this bathroom threatening to take over— _fresh beginnings._

 _A clean slate,_ Sam tells herself, and for the first time, she takes a step past her grief.

Josh splashes her again, awakening her from her reverie—this time, soaking through her sweatpants, and she sighs. The shirt she’s wearing is long enough to cover any indecent exposure she might have, so she shimmies them off, kicking them to the corner where Josh’s clothes are piled.

Sam grabs the used washcloth and throws it at him, slapping him in the face. “Hold still, you’re still dirty,” she tells him. He looks disgruntled as he cups more bubbles in his hands, smearing them in her hair.

“Josh, goddammit! Sit still and let me wash you off!”

His very mature response is to splash more water on her.

“You know what? Fine. _Fine._ You _want_ to get messy? We’ll get _messy_ ,” she tells him, pushing up her sleeves and clambering into the tub with him. Sam’s first order of business is to dunk him under the water, intent on extracting revenge.

Unfortunately, that plan goes awry when he pulls her down too, and they both come up for air, sputtering.

She throws bubbles at him and sticks her tongue out, like the mature adult she is, and he attempts to smile.

It’s frightening, almost, with the amount of teeth he has, but it isn’t as wide as it was three days ago, and her heart warms. _I think he’s getting better_.

“Holy shit,” Sam says, eyes widening. “Josh, I think you’re getting better! _Holy shit!_ ”

Sam sits, stunned for a moment, when she suddenly becomes acutely aware that he’s naked and she’s half-naked, and it’s like their whole damn relationship has come full circle, and she laughs until she cries.

Eventually, she does need to get out of the tub; both she and Josh have already become wrinkly in the dirty bathwater.

“Fuck, I forgot clothes,” she mutters to herself, and sloshes out of the tub. Grabbing a towel, she turns to Josh. “Stay here.” He sits obediently in the water, and she walks to Josh’s room, leaving puddles in her wake. Fortunately, she stashed Em’s bag in here, so she raids through her clothes again for clean undergarments and dries off, trying not to feel off-put by the terry cloth on her skin, and trying not to think about running through this very same lodge with a fake-psycho on her heels.

After dressing herself, she paws around his drawers for sweatpants, a t-shirt, boxers, and socks, and she shuffles back towards the bathroom, mopping up the puddles she left with her used towel. Her shoulder aches from her impromptu water fight, and she’s tired, ready to sleep again.

“I’m coming in, hope you’re decent,” Sam says as she opens the door, pile of clothes in one arm.

Josh is standing in front of the tub, dripping wet, and he’s holding something in his hands. It glitters in the dull light, and her heart skips a beat—

It’s Hannah’s butterfly necklace.

It must’ve been in the bathroom, as both Hannah and Beth had the propensity for leaving their jewelry all over countertops. Josh’s face is screwed up, as if he’s in pain—

“Sister,” he croaks. “ _Sister._ ”

Tears are streaming down his face, and he holds onto the necklace like it’s a lifeline.

Sam moves towards him slowly, and he doesn’t seem to notice her, not really. She gathers him into her arms as he cries, the keening noises coming from his throat a painful mixture of human and animal. He sinks to the floor, pulling her down with him, and she tucks his head against the crook of her neck as he wails.

She focuses on the physical sensations to push away her own sorrow. She thinks about how her shoulder’s on fire and how he’s damp in her arms, how the wetness is beginning to seep into her dry t-shirt. She thinks about the smudged and dusty windows, how the tiles hurt her knees and her left foot is falling asleep.

When his sobs die down into whimpers, she speaks.

“Josh, I know it hurts. Believe me, _I know_. And it’s so hard, waking up every day with the knowledge that they’re gone, and I don’t want to say some shitty line about how ‘ _they’re not truly gone, as long as we remember them._ ’ Because _they are gone_ , and time’s moving forward. But we’re here, and we’re stumbling and trudging along _together_ , because we decided that we didn’t have to face this grief alone. We decided that we’d bear the burden together, and I’m sorry. I let you down, I was the hypocrite telling you to let me in when I didn’t let you in, but I promise, we can do this together.”

“I know you fucked up too, but we can still work through this together, even though some moments you’re fine and then some moments it feels like your heart is being ripped out, but that’s what being alive is. It’s being hurt, and healing, and being hurt all over again. But we’re here, and we’re alive, and we’re bleeding—but we’re together, right now, and that counts for something.”

Sam’s uncomfortable, damp and tired, but she can’t help but feel like something tremendous has happened; a burden has been shed.

Eventually, his grip on her slackens, and she peels herself out of his arms. Standing, she grabs a towel, and she turns around to find that he’s standing up as well.

“Can you dry off?” she asks honestly, but Josh’s eyes are swollen and he’s swaying on his feet, on the brink of exhaustion, and she begins to towel him dry. Gently, she helps him get dressed, and they both shuffle out of the bathroom. Sam makes a brief pit-stop to change her shirt again and put on her sling, but they make it back down to the basement in good time.

Herding him towards the nest, she sits him down and goes on a brief adventure to locate more comforters. Sam knows there’s a stockpile somewhere in the basement, vacuum-sealed to prevent time from reaching them, and she finally finds them buried in a closet.

She drags the bag back to the nest, unzips it, and pulls out the slightly musty blankets. Sam puts one in the nest and pulls the other over Josh. She wraps the comforter she stole off his bed around herself, and they curl up in an exhausted heap, facing each other.

“Josh, I promise: _we’ll make it through together_ ,” she whispers to him once he’s asleep, eyes closed and limbs limp.

Later, in her dreams, she swears she can hear the word ‘ _Sammy,’_ its whisper like a caress in her sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My roommate likes to describe this chapter as "0 to 60 real fucking fast"
> 
> Thank you for all your kind comments, I really appreciate them!!
> 
> Thanks to my lovely beta, [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas)!
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) in otp hell.


	11. Somebody’s getting a little friendly…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFX08ssSsLI) to set the mood.

The radio on the kitchen table haunts and taunts her as she sits in front of it, hands clasped tightly together.

The words of Mike’s note seem to scream off the page, and she doesn’t know what to do. Josh is still sleeping downstairs, presumably exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster, and she’s here, staring at the table like the woodgrains will spell out the answer. It’s cloudy outside, but bright, and she’s not sure what time it is. Presumably early afternoon, but with the clouds, it’s impossible to tell.

 _Ah, fuck_.

If she calls Mike, she runs the risk of him running back to her with backup and more firepower. If she doesn’t, he’ll probably come back anyway to see if she made it out, or at the very least bring her body back for a burial.

She cringes at the thought of what her parents are going through, her mother probably hysterical and her father distraught. Who will drive her mom around when she’s not there? Ever since the accident, her mother refuses to sit behind the wheel of the car, and her father’s out of town more often than not.

_I have to call Mike, tell him I need more time—_

Her hand hovers over the radio, and she switches it on. Grabbing the handset, she holds down the button, and says, “Mike, do you copy?” she pauses, and then for good measure, adds, “over.”

Static buzzes, and she waits. _Maybe he’s not near it, maybe he gave up hope—_

“Sam, I read you. Over.” Sam lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“Are you okay? Over.” Mike adds, and it’s just such a broad question—she probably re-tore her rotator cuff, but Josh spoke for the first time, even with all the baggage they carry.

“Yeah,” she says. “I—we—just need more time, over.”

“ _We?_ ” She can’t quite decipher the tone of his voice over the crackling radio, but she guesses it’s disbelief, anger, frustration.

Sam’s right.

“I cannot fucking believe you. Josh is there? At the lodge?” Mike’s so worked up he forgets to add over to the end, but she gets the gist of it.

“He spoke, Mike. _He spoke._ And if that’s not getting better, I don’t know what it is.”

“Josh... spoke?”

“It’s a long story, Mike, but trust me. We’re doing okay. The Washingtons stocked some non-perishables for the get-together, and the hot water’s working. We’re okay. I just need to ride this out, okay? Over.”

“I read you, Sam. Just... don’t wait so long to radio me, okay? Keep me copied. Over.”

“I will,” she promises, relief warm in her chest. “Over.” She puts the handset back in its place and slumps down in the chair. It’s like a weight has been lifted from her chest.

Sam hears someone creaking up the stairs and freezes. It’s Josh, and her heartbeat stutters in her chest. _Wendigos are nocturnal,_ she thinks, _aren’t they?_

He’s squinting, like it’s incredibly sunny instead of miserably cloudy, but he’s just past the threshold of the basement door. Josh scans the area until his eyes alight on her. _He was just looking for me_ , Sam tells herself, as he shuffles over to the table, eyes still mostly shut against the light.

Half of his mouth is starting to look more human, the other half still the twisted visage of the Wendigo, and the cuts on his face are pink and healing. His hair is fluffy and clean from the bath last night, and Sam resists the temptation to run her fingers through it.

Josh moves to pull out a chair; his hands are starting to look more human even though his nails still taper into claws. He flops into the seat, and it’s just such a _human_ gesture that it almost brings tears to her eyes.

 _No more tears. I’ve fucking cried my weight in tears by now_ , she tells herself.

He’s staring at her, eyes finally opened wider now that he’s begun to adjust to the light. Sam begins to fidget under his intense gaze, and she wonders why she feels awkward when they’ve literally both seen each other naked.

 _He’s more human, now_.

“I get it, my hair looks like a crow's nest, but that’s just one of the trials of long hair,” she tells him.

Josh continues to stare, eyes boring into hers.

“Holy fuck. Please stop staring at me. It’s making me nervous.”

“Sam,” he croaks, and he looks so pleased with himself at his success, leaning back in the chair with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“ _Holy fuck_ ,” Sam whispers. The world spins around her, and yet they’re still here, sitting at the table, staring at each other, her name hanging suspended in the air.

_He said my name, he said my name, he said my name—_

Sam refuses to cry, goddammit. The wetness on her face means nothing when she chokes out, “ _Josh,_ ” and nothing else.

His voice is hoarse and scratchy when he says, “ _You saved me_ ,” but nothing can hide the pure wonder and amazement in his eyes.

“I didn’t,” Sam manages to say, “You did. You saved yourself, and I knew you could, you stubborn fucking asshole.”

Josh doesn’t speak anymore, instead points to the sling on her shoulder, head tilting in question. His mannerisms are becoming more human, and Sam is finding it easier and easier to read the cant of his head, the glint in his eyes.

She rubs at her shoulder, wincing as she hits a tender spot and pain splinters down her arm.

“It’s... okay, I guess. I keep using it, and I think it makes it worse, but I’m pretty sure I re-tore my rotator cuff. It’s always been sensitive since the accident, but physical therapy helped a lot. When I, uh, fell down that hill in the snow, I tried to catch myself and I think that’s how I re-injured it,” she explains, and he frowns when she mentions her tumble down the hill. “It’ll be okay though, it just needs time,” Sam adds hastily, and he relaxes slightly.

As Josh’s humanity begins returning in full force, Sam finds herself equal parts overjoyed and at a loss.

Josh’s humanity meant a return to the real world, and the idea of normalcy is unsettling. She’s adapted to their strange little life and isn’t sure how to go back to _before_. And with Josh, well, that’s a different story entirely—she’s forcefully reminded of his prank every time she visits the bathroom or wanders too deep into the basement. Where does she stand? Where does _he_ stand?

 _Hell, he played the prank on me, does he even want me around?_ Sam thinks, and the thought shoots ice cold fear into her heart. _How do we move forward?_

Her chest aches and she chokes on her own breath. _When did I start shaking so badly?_ Sam asks herself, fighting the urge to curl up in a ball. Questions of the future and moving forward plague her, and the sudden, infallible knowledge that the world is ending crashes down on her.

She’s lost her sense of security and happiness, she’s lost Hannah and Beth, and now _Josh_ —her grief and fear tangle for control.

Sam fights to take a breath. It feels like her lungs are being crushed beneath her overwhelming fear of uncertainty, death, the future— _aren’t those all the same thing?_

Her heart’s beating out of her chest, and she gives into the urge to crawl under the table and curl into a ball, only half-aware of Josh crawling under the table with her. He wraps his arms around her, holding her together even when she’s shaking apart.

Sam knows she’s having an anxiety attack, but that knowledge doesn’t stop her heart from racing or her chest from burning, the dry heaves that leave her trembling and tacky with cold sweat.

“ _Breathe,_ ” is whispered into her ear, and she struggles to remember her breathing exercises. She’s aware of the warmth around her, seeping into her through their clothes, and focuses on it. She tries to focus on the feeling of the t-shirt around her shoulders and the knot of the sling pressing into her neck.

She breathes.

Sam is reminded sharply of the first night Josh came to her after they lost the twins, when he held her as if doing so would keep him from unravelling at the seams. He’s holding her again now, but this time in an effort to keep _her_ in one piece, and the familiarity of the situation finally slows her rapid pulse.

“Thank you,” Sam tells him honestly, when she can speak again, and he nods. It must hurt his vocal cords to be used after so much silence, but that’s okay—right now, words aren’t needed.

*****

“I talked to Mike,” Sam says nonchalantly as she rustles through the kitchen cabinets, and Josh sputters. In his arms are all of the comforters they had hoarded downstairs, but now that Josh ventured to the first floor unassisted, she insists on sleeping there in front of the fireplace.

“I asked him for more time. I told him you were getting better,” she adds, but he still looks irritated as he drops the blankets in a pile on the floor.

He grumbles, and she frowns at him. “It was either that or he would’ve come barging back in here, ready to torch the place.”

“Fuck him,” Josh mutters. He doesn’t speak much, but his voice gets clearer every day. It’s a toss up—sometimes, he’ll wake up thrashing and screeching, “ _you’re not real,_ ” and sometimes, like now, he’ll manage a funny comment or a movie reference.

“For all his sins, he managed to get everyone off this mountain alive, and I think that’s an accomplishment.”

Sam glances at him from the corner of her eye, contemplative. It was hard to tell how much he remembers, or how the transformation affected him—she doesn’t want to push it, not when he has the stability of a three-legged dog, even if he’s doing lightyears better than she anticipated.

He’s not over the twins, not over all the other baggage that weighs him down, but neither is Sam, and that’s okay. _Catharsis,_ the grief counselor had called it. Funny, how the word had remained an intangible concept until now.

Sam finally locates a box of Wheat Thins in the top shelf of the cabinet after she climbs onto the counter, and she makes a soft celebratory noise in her throat. Pleased by her success, she tries to slide off the counter, forgetting one crucial issue—she’s still in a sling. Within seconds, she’s scrambling at the ledge—and then she’s laying on the floor, blinking up at the faraway ceiling. Her box of Wheat Thins lies pitifully beside her, and she’s slightly dazed.

“Sammy!” Josh croaks, and she hears his rapid footsteps approaching. Suddenly, he’s leaning over her, concern written all over his face.

“I’m good,” she coughs, but still accepts the hand Josh holds out and lets him help her to her feet. Sam stares at him carefully, trying to read his mood while failing to notice that she’s still grasping his hand tightly.

His cheeks pinken, and she looks down at their clasped hands. _Oh_ , she thinks, _my bad._ She drops his hand like it’s on fire, feeling her own face flush.

“Um. Anyway. I’m gonna go eat these Wheat Thins,” Sam manages to say without stuttering, but before she’s even finished speaking, Josh has fled the kitchen.

 _Does he hate touching me that much?_ she asks herself, but quickly shoves the thought out of her mind.

Instead, Sam focuses on the Wheat Thins and how dry they are in her mouth, staring out the window as the snowflakes gently fall. Grief coils in her gut, ready to pounce, but its intensity has lessened over the past few days. Maybe she’s really out of tears, or maybe she passed a threshold she didn’t know she had. The ghosts of Hannah and Beth still linger in her mind, but less vengeful, less angry—the grief has quieted into sadness and loss, but it’s no longer all consuming. She can see past it, and the thought gives her hope.

*****

When they curl up together that night, Josh is oddly quiet and refuses to meet her eyes. It makes Sam’s heart twist, because all she can think is _what’s wrong, what did I do, how did I fail you—_

But then, voice still hoarse from disuse, Josh asks, so softly there’s a chance he didn’t mean for her to actually hear it, “I licked your face?” and every one of those thoughts derails in a trainwreck.

Her face burns, and she fidgets. “Yes?”

“I laid on top of you.”

“Yes?”

“You cleaned my face with your spit.”

Sam feels the flush spreading down her neck and fights the urge to bluff. “ _Yes?_ ”

She turns over towards Josh in their shared nest, and when her eyes land on his face, it’s as red as hers is. It’s an odd sight when half of his mouth is still twisted with fangs.

“I saw you,” Josh states, and his voice is rough with disuse, sure, but there’s something different in the quality of it. He finishes, swallowing, “naked.”

“Yes?” Sam waits for the impending reaction, whether it be blustering, denial— _anything_ has to be better than this uncomfortable silence, but the pause lengthens.

“I mean, it’s been our _modus operandi_ for years, Joshua. Constantly meeting each other in states of various undress.”

He lets out a huff of laughter, but says nothing else, avoiding her eyes. Frowning, Sam continues to stare at him. She grabs his face with her hands and tilts it toward herself. It’s a bit awkward with her injured shoulder, but she manages.

“I’m not sure what you’re worried about, but in all of those situations you were more _Wendigo_ than _Josh_.”

He frowns at this, obviously unconvinced.

“I’m not mad, or weirded out, or anything else. Stuff happened, it was weird, but we were living in a cave. I ate raw rabbit! I think you licking me clean is the least of our problems.” Sam pauses for a moment, then says, “Well, I could’ve phrased that better, but the point remains. I’m alive because of you—you splinted my leg and saved me from other Wendigos, fed me and kept me warm. You saved my life, asshole. Now stop overthinking things.”

She strokes her thumbs down his cheeks, hopes the gesture is reassuring. One thumb accidentally brushes the jagged edge of his mouth where his fangs protrude, and he flinches at the slight tug. Sam freezes.

“Is it sensitive? I’m sorry,” she apologizes quickly, but Josh shakes his head. In that next moment, she catches the self-loathing that fills his eyes, and it hurts her to see it eat at him. She grips his face a bit more firmly.

“Joshua Washington, I am not afraid of you, and you are not a monster.” To prove her point, Sam busses a kiss against each side of his face, letting her lips skim the prominent line of his fangs. Shocked by her own boldness, she rolls over, tucking the comforter around herself like a shield to hide her hot face.

_Fuck, what’ve I gotten into now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to the end ;) Thanks for all your comments, I really appreciate them!
> 
> On a more serious note, writing an anxiety attack was very difficult as someone who suffers from them. They're not fun, and I know they're not as bad as panic attacks, but they still suck. Urgh.
> 
> Thanks to the best roomie/beta ever, [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas)!
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) in otp hell.
> 
> My roommate is also bullying me into writing an angsty alternate ending for this fic, so we'll see how that goes.


	12. Guilty of something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, [shoujomermaid](http://shojomermaids.tumblr.com/) drew the most beautiful [fanart of the bathing scene!](http://shojomermaids.tumblr.com/post/130654274266/so-im-like-completely-taken-over-by-samjosh-i) I'm so ridiculously honored and in love with this, you don't even understand.
> 
> Also, I have two song recommendations for this chapter. (Do you guys even listen to the music? Just curious.) Listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmErRm-vApI) and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_Snj1iILc)!

Sam awakens to Josh thrashing in his sleep, groaning and whining. His face is wet with tears, and when she attempts to grab his wildly waving hand, his thrashing increases. His hand lashes out again, and he hits her mouth, the blow stinging.

“Fuck. Josh, wake up,” Sam says, shaking his shoulders, her lip throbbing, but he’s still caught in the nightmare. With another muffled curse, she clambers on top of him, forcefully pinning his arms down.

“ _Joshua!_ ” she shouts, and he awakens with a loud gasp, eyes wide and disorientated.

“Josh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she stresses, wincing at the strain her shoulder is under. Josh’s eyes flick to her face, finding her split lip. His breathing is heavy and labored, like he’s just run a marathon.

Sam releases his arms and sits back as she waits for Josh to reorient himself. “You’re okay,” she says, and rubs at her lip. It stings, and she adds it to her ever-growing list of mishaps and injuries.

“I’m sorry,” Josh says at last, his eyes tracking the movement of her hand as she gently prods her lip.

“Nothing to apologize for. It was an accident,” Sam replies, dismissing it. They fall silent.

It’s only a few moments before she realizes she’s still straddling Josh, and Sam remembers how only hours before, she was cradling his face and kissing his cheek. The blush creeps up her neck, and it has her thankful for the piss-poor lighting.

Awkwardly, she slides off of him and curls back up in the nest. She’s still tired, so it’s not long before she slips into that hazy place between dream and reality. Sam notices that Josh is still lying stiffly on his back, his eyes wide open and staring determinedly at the ceiling.

Carefully, she inches towards him, pushing herself under his arm until she can lay her head on his chest. “Get some sleep,” Sam tells him drowsily, and the last thing she remembers is his arm curling between her shoulderblades before she drifts off.

*****

Sam is awakened by a painful throbbing in her bad shoulder, a testament to just how uncomfortable her current sleeping position is. She and Josh are a tangle of limbs, and she’s pleased to see that he’s sleeping soundly. Sam gently extricates herself from the mess and slides her sling over her shoulder. She pads into the kitchen, ravenous, when the radio on the table crackles loudly.

“Sam, do you read me, over,” Mike’s voice says amidst the static, and she jogs to snatch the radio off the table and run up the stairs, in an attempt to not wake Josh.

She enters Josh’s bedroom and sits on the bed, grabbing the radio handset.

“I read you Mike, over.” Sam answers, crossing her legs under herself. The bed is a mess of rumpled sheets since she stole the comforter, but it’s comfortable, and she leans against the headboard. She feels lighter, even though she knows they still have a long way to go.

“You have two days,” Mike’s voice crackles, and her heart plummets like a stone.

 _Two days_.

“What do you mean, two days?” Sam snarls into the handheld, her brief good mood dissipated.

“They’re sending a helicopter by to pick you up when the snowstorm blows over,” he tells her. “Your parents... they’re worried. And so are the Washingtons.”

“Mike, all I asked you for was time. This? This is the opposite of time. Josh is making some real progress! He needs a quiet environment, and one where he feels safe. You could fuck us all over,” she says bitterly.

“No, what he needs is a straight jacket and a mental institution, Sam. You’re not his therapist, and you don’t have to be.”

“I’m not his therapist, I know that. I’m his friend, and I’m supporting him, I’m not pretending that I’m some magical fucking cure-all that can fix all his issues with the power of love, _Michael_. But he needs support, and he’s pretty thin on that right now.”

Mike doesn’t respond for a moment, and Sam tries to tamp down her rage. Anger won’t help her now; there’s nothing she can do that will prevent a rescue team from swooping down on them.

There is still one thing she can try though, so Sam speaks.

“He’s not a danger to himself or others right now, Mike. He should only be committed if it’s voluntary or if he goes into psychosis again. But trying to force him into a recovery like that will just send him into a downward spiral,” she says quietly into the radio.

It only crackles in response, and Sam holds her breath. Yes, she can’t stop the rescue team, but she’s terrified of some orderly waiting on the helicopter with a needle full of some unpronounceable drug, ready to commit Josh. Yes, he needs help that she can’t provide, but another terrifying hospital experience will only make him loathe psychiatrists more.

“Fine, Kamkin, have it your way.” Mike says, and then a sigh crackles over the radio. “Just... watch your back, okay? Over.”

“You too, Mike. Over.”

Sam leans her head back on the headboard, screwing her eyes shut. Fuck, what to do? How will she tell Josh? She glares at the offending radio like it might spit out the answer, but it only sits in her hand, silent.

“ _Fuck,_ ” she mutters with feeling.

After a minute of sulking, she stands and opens the door.

Josh is sitting against the wall next to the door, his shoulders drooped considerably, and he looks up at her when she enters the hall. He looks angry, and upset, and she panics. _Shit, this was not how he was supposed to find out._

“Getting all buddy-buddy with Mike, Kamkin?” Josh grits out, and she resists the urge to roll her eyes. _Of course_ this is what this is all about. Josh is prickly about her and Mike. He’s _always_ been prickly about her and Mike.

“Fuck, Josh, is that _really_ all you’re taking from this? He decides to fucking radio me that we’ve got company coming in _two days_ and this is what you decide to focus on? The fact that he radioed me at all?” Sam bites out the words, shoulders stiff.

Josh leaps to his feet. He’s mere inches away from her now, and it’s hard to believe she let herself forget just how much he towers over her.

“Mike’s right—I’m _fucked up_ , Sammy. Wake up and smell the roses,” Josh says bitterly, his voice still hoarse, and the way he spits out _Sammy_ makes her heart twist.

“Yeah, Josh, you’re _fucked up_ ,” Sam agrees, “and _I’m_ fucked up. And _Mike’s_ fucked up _._ And yeah, we all fucked up this past year, so don’t _you dare_ try and tote that as some sort of fucking reason for me to abandon you. _Newsflash_ , Joshua—I’m not going anywhere.” She jabs a finger into his chest for emphasis.

“Sam, I belong in the fucking loony house. I see my sisters’ rotting corpses as they fucking _blame_ me for their death, and what if I fuck up? Look, I fucking punched you in the face, gave you a split lip, and I was _just asleep_! What if I fucking lose you, and then your corpse can join the fucking lineup—”

“ _I_ get to make that choice, Josh. _I_ get to choose who I spend my time with, and shit, I choose you. I fucked up last year. I was too afraid to ask you for help, and I almost lost you as a result, so I’m not fucking making the same mistake twice! _I choose you, asshole!_ ”

The words reverberate throughout the empty rooms of the lodge, and suddenly the space seems too small. In the heat of the argument, they’ve both moved closer until they stand chest-to-chest, breathing heavily due to the fight and their heightened emotions.

Sam takes advantage of the fact that she’s apparently stunned him into silence, and continues, her voice softer, “Josh, you get to choose, too. But I’ve made my choice, and I’ll stand by it. I’m asking you for help and support, and I’ll give it back in kind.”

“But just say the word, Josh,” she continues, voice growing smaller, “and once we get back to L.A., I’ll leave. If you want me to leave, I will, but don’t push me away for the wrong reasons.”

She can’t stare at his face; they’re too close—so she stares at his collarbone, and his throat, and she watches the swallow work past his adam’s apple as she waits for judgement. _Guilty or not guilty—jury, what’s the verdict?_

“ _Don’t,_ ” is the only thing that comes out of his mouth, hoarse and broken. “Don’t leave, please, don’t leave.”

Sam swallows, and relief floods her chest. “I won’t, Josh. I promise.”

Josh hesitates, and his arms move achingly slow, but he wraps them around her and tucks her head under his chin. Sam hugs him with her non-injured arm, face pressing into his chest. His embrace is almost painfully tight.

“I choose you too, Sammy,” he says, and his voice is wrecked from their arguing. Sam thinks it’s the most words he’s spoken at once since he’s been able to, and she regrets that it’s from a fight.

“We only have two days,” Sam tells him, voice muffled slightly by his chest. “And then this mountain will get really crowded.”

He grumbles in response, and his arms tighten fractionally, pressing down on her bad shoulder.

“As nice as I think this hug is, my shoulder doesn’t agree,” she says, and Josh releases her almost instantly, his face upset.

“If you dare back out of your choice because you _accidentally_ ”—she stresses the accidentally, hoping he’ll stop overthinking everything—“made my shoulder sore, I will actually punch you. No joke,” Sam warns him, and he finally relaxes.

His eyes are still worried, so she rises to the tips of her toes and presses a kiss to the edge of his chin, because she can’t reach his mouth. “We’re fine.”

Josh’s face colors, and Sam pats his shoulder. “Now let’s go eat something.”

*****

The next two days drag on for years, but at the same time, are gone in a flash. Though Sam and Josh have no real reason to sleep in the nest together anymore, they continue to—both are still plagued by their nightmares, and the comfort of another warm body during the long and exhausting nights is indescribable.

The edge of Josh’s mouth remains the last, lingering thread of the Wendigo spirit. Sam can see it healing better by the day, but it still stretches his mouth in an uncomfortable grimace. He likes to curl up next to her in the evenings, face tucked into the crook of her neck where she can feel the gentle scrape of his fangs against her skin.

The days pass in a flurry of snowstorms, ice pelting the glass in an endless rain. Sam awakens on their last day to the sun shining uncomfortably bright, and Josh curled around her, shielding her from the morning light. Josh is pressed into her back, and he’s as warm as a space-heater. She twists her head to face him, to take in the sight while it’s still there. The angle doesn’t entirely agree with her neck, but she ignores it.

“Josh,” she whispers into his ear, but he only tightens his arms around her. “ _Joshua._ It’s time,” Sam tells him, and his eyes fly open, but his grip doesn’t slacken.

“We have to get up.”

“No.”

“Oh my god, don’t be a five year old. The helicopter will be here, and we need to be ready or they’ll break down the door.”

“Don’t care.”

Sam wiggles in his arms impatiently. “Josh,” she sighs.

“I don’t want to see everyone. What if they hate me?” Josh whispers into her neck and hair.

“Then you apologize. We fucked up too, we didn’t see—or ignored, more likely—the warning signs.”

“I’m fucked up, Sam. I’ve had issues since before my sisters fell off a cliff.”

“Then you ask for help, Josh. I remember someone telling me that once. It’s good advice.” Sam shrugs, and she feels him smile against her neck.

“Must’ve been a smart guy.”

“He’s kind of an asshole, but he’s my asshole.”

Eventually, they both struggle out of the nest, and out of habit she begins folding the blankets and stacking them on the couch. Josh is pacing the length of the living room, and his hand keeps rising to touch his mangled mouth.

“If you pick at it, it’s gonna heal slower,” Sam tells him, and he glances at her, but doesn’t stop his pacing.

“What if it doesn’t? What if it’s like this forever, and everyone will always be able to see how messed up I am?”

Sam pauses. She hasn’t thought of that, and anxiety briefly courses through her, but she takes a deep breath. “It’ll work out.”

Before Josh can argue, they both hear the faint  _whop-whop-whop_ of the chopper blades, and her heart constricts despite itself. Josh is frozen in the middle of the living room, so Sam walks over to him and grabs his hand. There’s still a long way to go, neither of them healed and both of them wounded, but it’s okay.

Josh looks down at her, face drawn and nervous, and she squeezes his fingers in hers. “You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. Together.”

They walk out of the lodge like that, hand-in-hand, and face the bright morning sun, dawn a distant memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue is left now! Thank you guys for your support on this adventure. This definitely won't be my last sam x josh fic, just trying to figure out what to write next!
> 
> Thanks to the best beta ever [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas)!
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) in otp hell.


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2_G9mfd2zY) first, and then [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtLryriWeM). It'd mean a lot to me :3c

Sam still wakes up with nightmares. Occasionally, once she awakens, they slip out of her grasp, leaving her with only gasping breaths and an undeniable fear curling deep in her stomach. But more often than not, she remembers every echoing scream that comes from Hannah’s mouth, the resounding snap of Beth’s spine.

On one of her worse nights, Sam dials her phone before she’s even fully awake, the number programmed into her favorites, and Josh picks up on the third ring.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just... had a nightmare,” Sam tells him hoarsely. He pauses for a beat, and then asks;

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says honestly. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Josh pauses over the line, and she wonders if he’s embarrassed. She probably would be too, if she was more awake right now.

“Are you still coming tomorrow?” Josh asks eventually, voice slightly tinny through the tiny speaker.

She curls back up in bed, phone tucked against her ear. “Yeah, I haven’t seen Ash in ages. Are they officially dating?”

“Nah, he keeps saying he doesn’t want to ‘ _jinx it_ ’ by giving it a label,” and Sam can hear the air quotes clearly over the phone. She rolls her eyes.

“I mean, but they’re pretty much dating,” Sam says into the phone. “Despite what Chris says.”

“Yeah, well, the other day,” Josh begins, launching into an elaborate story about him and Chris trying some stupid shit. It warms her heart to hear him speak so lightly, though she knows he still carries baggage—he’ll call her, crying, in the middle of the night, and she’ll drive out to see him.

He had written her a letter after his fourth therapy session—he prefaced it by saying that his therapists suggested it, as a way to express his feelings and apologize for what had happened at the lodge. The wrinkled paper still had tear-stains from the first time she read it, and it was tucked in her underwear drawer, where she irrationally kept everything close and precious.

There are some days he’s overwhelmed, shutting himself in his room and shouting, and there are some days she can’t function, curled under layers of blankets and unspeaking.

But now she can fall asleep, lulled by the low cadence of his voice, and she thinks she’s dreaming by the time she hears a quiet ‘ _I love you_ ’ murmured into her ear.

*****

Sam arrives at the Washington house before everyone else, and tries valiantly to ignore the memories assaulting her brain. She can almost here Hannah and Beth laughing in her ear, and she’s already stood in front of the door for a minute before she realizes she never rang the doorbell.

She’s already slightly out of it, and she mentally curses, pressing the doorbell a few times to express her irritability.

Josh grumbles at her when he opens the door. “Sammy, did you really have to press the doorbell seven times?”

He’s looking better, and it warms her heart—part of his cheek is still puckered, slightly scarred from their time in the mines, but he’s finally put some weight back on, and the bags under his eyes are less pronounced.

Sam walks past him, sniffing haughtily. “Yes,” she tells him primly. The house is empty, quiet without the twins. She assumes Mr. and Mrs. Washington are out, working or doing whatever it is millionaires do.

She’s already halfway to the kitchen before she realizes Josh isn’t behind her; he’s still standing at the door, brows furrowed in thought.

“Josh?” she questions, and when he doesn’t respond she walks over to him and grabs his hand.

“Sorry, Sammy, just spacing out,” he says, smiling weakly. Sam frowns at him.

“Spacing out _my ass_ , Joshua. Remember, give and take,” she says, squeezing his hand.

“I just hate this house,” Josh finally says. “It’s a reminder of everything, and sometimes, I just want to bury the past, you know?”

Sam nods, slowly, and strokes her thumb in absent circles on the back of his hand. “I understand. Honestly, everything would be easier if we could bury the past, but we can’t. It’ll just come back and bite us in the ass. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a fresh start.”

Josh seems to absorb this for a moment, then he blurts out—“I’m thinking about going back to school.”

Sam instantly brightens. She’d just registered for the fall semester at the local community college herself, ready to take those first small steps forward. They have a small track team, and she’s hoping to join.

“That’s great!” Sam encourages. “We’ll be students together!”

“Well, I was thinking, if I’m at a community college I should get an apartment close to campus, right? Since the house is far away. And, fuck it—Sam, would you share an apartment with me? It’d be easier than commuting, and if you don’t want to, it’s totally fine,” Josh says quickly, and Sam can feel her face reddening.

She and Josh have been dancing awkwardly over the line between friends and something more, but everyone else has been too kind or too tired to point it out to them.

“As long as you promise to split rent evenly,” Sam says, avoiding eye contact.

“I totally understand if you don’t want to, because I’ve got baggage and I don’t wanna make anything awkward—wait,” Josh cuts himself off, her words finally processing in his mind. “Really?”

“Yes, stupid. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell my parents I want to move out for ages, and you’ll be a good roommate. Even if you insist on dissecting every movie we watch.”

Relief floods his face, and he ends up picking her up and spinning her around.

“Aww, Sammy, I knew you liked me!”

“Of course I like you, dumbass. Why else would I hang out with you?” Sam grumbles when Josh sets her down again.

They begin chatting as Sam starts to make popcorn on the stove. She tells him about how Mike dotes on Jessica constantly, and even though Jess protests, she totally loves him for it. In return, Josh tells her about Chris’ plans of going to grad school. Then the stories begin to lull, and the two of them exist in a comfortable silence.

Sam knows he still has a scar on his shoulder from where Ashley stabbed him with scissors, and Josh knows that her leg and shoulder ache when it rains. He knows she wants to become an environmental activist, and she know he still wants to be a film critic.

They exist in a soft state of knowledge that there’s always going to be someone there to support and care for them, through their worst moments and their darkest hours. Sam lets that knowledge wrap around her, warm her, and she breathes out a contented sigh. Josh happens to catch it, and he glances over at her from his place further down the counter.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m just... I think I’m content,” she admits, wonder creeping into her voice. “And I kinda feel bad about it. Like, I’m stealing it, or that if it lasts too long I’ll lose it.”

Josh walks over to her and slings an arm around her shoulders, and she smiles, relaxing into him.

“Me too, but if I’ve learned anything from you, it’s that we’ll make it through. Together,” he tells her, and she feels like the grinch whose heart grew three sizes that day—

Twisting her head and stretching to her tiptoes, Sam tries to kiss his chin in gratitude, but before she can, Josh meets her halfway and catches her mouth softly. Sam pauses, only for a moment, before turning towards him and leaning forward—

A loud pop from the stove startles them, and they break apart, faces flushing as Sam moves away to stir the kernels in the kettle.

“So, that happened,” she stutters out.

“I mean... did you want that to happen?” Josh asks, and she can hear all the unasked questions in the tone of his voice and the hopeful lilt of his words.

“Yes,” Sam answers, decisive and swift.

“Good,” he breathes out, and his relief is nearly tangible. “Me too.”

“But you should probably take me out to dinner first, Mr. Washington. I’m not that kind of girl, you know,” she informs Josh, unable to hide the smile in her voice.

They’re interrupted by the doorbell ringing, and Sam gestures for Josh to go get it. “If you leave Chris and Ash out there for long, they’ll either get suspicious or end up making out on your front porch. I’m not sure what you’d prefer,” she tells him dryly.

“Any way that gets us more time together,” Josh replies with a crooked grin.

She rolls her eyes. “Get the door, Romeo.”

“As my lady doth command me.” He bows elaborately, and the doorbell rings again.

Sam smiles to herself as she hears the door open, followed by Chris and Ash laughing. It warms her heart, knowing they’re safe and happy. Though all of them are marred and scarred by tragedy and hurt, they’re here now—and it counts for something, and means everything.

“Sam!” Chris exclaims when he enters the kitchen. Ashley smiles at her, waving a greeting, but Chris ends up swooping them both up into a group hug.

“I’m trying to make popcorn here, genius,” Sam laughs. “If it burns, it’s on you.”

“Chris, if you make her burn it, I will literally kill you,” Ashley tells him, muffled in the hug.

He releases them, and says, “Sorry I’m too much man for you both. It’s hard to contain _this_ ,” and Chris tries to pose like a bodybuilder, flexing his muscles and wiggling his eyebrows outrageously. Ashley laughs and punches him in the arm.

Sam is chuckling at this ridiculous spectacle when she notices Josh watching her, a gentle smile on his face. She immediately begins to blush under his scrutiny, which makes him smile even wider. Sam’s so caught up in this she doesn’t notice Chris beginning to glance back and forth between her and Josh, and then—a metaphorical lightbulb.

“Oh my god, you guys—you have a thing! You totally have a thing, and you didn’t even tell us!” Chris cries out, and Ashley’s mouth opens in a little _oh_ of dawning comprehension.

“How the fuck do you notice this immediately when it took you like, four years to actually convince yourself Ashley liked you back?” Sam snaps half-heartedly, and Josh uses this opportunity to chime in.

“Yeah, bro, like you can talk—it took you years to take Ash to the _bone zone_.”

“God, Josh. Stop saying that, it’s never going to catch on,” Ashley groans.

“Anyways!” Sam interrupts brightly, pouring the popcorn into a bowl. “Who’s ready to watch the movie!”

Deflection successful, they move towards the home theater, chattering. Chris steals the bowl of popcorn and runs ahead with it, holding it above Ashley’s head. The door of the theater slams behind Ashley, leaving the two in the hallway. Josh lingers behind, and Sam turns towards him, tilting her head in an unasked question.

“Sometimes I think I’m okay, but other times... I just don’t think I deserve this. Any of this,” Josh says quietly, crossing his arms over his chest and looking small despite the significant height difference between them.

“I don’t deserve you, and even though I know it’s wrong—there’s still the voice in my head that tells me that I’m fucked up and that everyone will leave, because I just keep slipping and...” he trails off, and she can hear the thickness in his voice.

Sam wraps her arms around Josh and places a kiss against his clothed sternum.

“Joshua Washington. You are valid, your feelings are valid, and every day you live is a brand new record and an achievement. I’m proud of how far you’ve come and how hard you try, and I’m stupidly in love with you.”

Josh doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t have to—Sam can hear his answer in the way he wraps his arms around her, returning the embrace.

_I’m stupidly in love with you, too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit. I can't believe this is over. This is the longest fic I've ever written, and the first long fic I've ever completed. I'm weirdly proud of myself. Thank you so much for all of your support and kind comments, you help keep me writing! I've already started on my next fic, and I don't know when I'll post it, but I do know it will **not** have daily updates. My academic duties need me more.
> 
> Thanks to the best beta ever, [angelheadedcas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedcas). Man, this was a trip, we should definitely do this again sometime. But honestly, this fic would never have happened with out her. She's amazing.
> 
> Follow me on [my tumblr](http://veryspookybisexual.tumblr.com/) in otp hell.


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